


The Echoes

by Hypnotunez



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adorable Cole, Amputation, Cassandra Pentaghast's Disgusted Noises, Fluff, Graphic Description of Injuries, Helpful Cole (Dragon Age), Mental Health Issues, Might go up in rating, Modern Girl in Thedas, Physical Disability, Post-Apocalypse, Pyromania, Solas Being Solas, Solas is an Egg, Trust Issues, Vivienne (Dragon Age) is a Bitch, be careful, cynical view of earth, everything in the tags will eventually be there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-04-16 23:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14175912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypnotunez/pseuds/Hypnotunez
Summary: WARNINGS: Do not trust any upload times I may say, I am actually rather busy but this story will never be abandoned. This story will get dark and will address mental issues regarding many characters such as ptsd, paranoia, depression, stress etc and has a character that loses a leg. For the sake of quality, I will not directly quote from the game as I have a horrid memory and I want this story to be at least readable and enjoyable. Initial Cassandra bashing at the beginning, sorry.Summary:The stories will be lost and the life you had will disappear, the trees will fall and the sun will set; And yet the echoes will remain. In metal cars and stone ruins, they will remain in stories lost. Then, the echoes will awaken. Earth's human civilisation was destroyed thirty five years ago by our own arrogance, now only animals shaped like humans remain. One such creature finds herself lost forever disabled in a world where dragons are more than fairytales, elves really do exist and where magic is more than a card trick.





	1. A prologue, of sorts

Grey, there was only grey. It seemed that there was only ever grey upon the land, sky or sea. Grey land, grey sky, grey sea. Thunder rolled in lapping toxic waves of greyscale, darting in and out of its rank shelter to spit and hiss before sinking back into angry clouds, muffled. It rumbled angrily at seemingly nothing but the world and all that inhabited it, snarling loudly, the bark with no bite however. The lighting cackled, crackling, condescendingly with blind hate; it shot forth many a time to jab at the dusty wet earth like a brooding gnat. Dangerously infected with electricity, it burnt the terrain with a blackened touch. The desert land, once hot and arid was whetted upon by an odd spell of storm clouds. Rain bombarded down, landing with a solid splatter and then springing upwards several feet from the immense velocity, like kamikaze pilots. Cacti lathered themselves in the rain, roots moist, sucking up as much as possible before the unusual turn of events left them dry boned.

A road, a simple road. The markings long since worn out with no one to care for them they had been rubbed off tortuously slowly with many rubber cars, feet and the natural wildlife. Time. Even to the naked eye, no one would think that there used to be a town if not for the lone cobbled building that stood strong. It was but a small town church of grey brick and mortar, no one would think that it would stand tall even now, yet it was the only building in a three hundred mile radius. Ruins had fallen around it, old shops with panel Windows, houses from the forgotten era and there seemed to be an old police department, the only sign of it once existing was a rusted old car that once held power over the criminals of this town.

Everything was forgotten from this time.

"'One would have once thought that humanity would have fallen from natural means or supernatural means as the old cinemas would have one know. Humanity was anything but natural, and thus, they fell upon unnatural weapons too evil for war. Let us pray for what we lost thirty-five years ago to this day.'"

The crackle of the radio brought some life to the area as a rusted old pick up truck rolled along the asphalt road. Worn and battered it came upon the road, past the church and police department it continued. The rain brought no shelter to the decaying metal and the humidity of the air stuck under layers of grime and rust, itching away at scabs.

"'- thank you for your silence, survivors. And now, today on the twenty-first of April 2081 We present and newly found track from the forgotten era! We hope you-'" the click of the radio switching off stopped all noise. There was silence in the night, only insects and rain sang their blues. The thunder and lightning still rolled in the sky like dragons upon the old fantasies.

There hadn't been April showers for thirty-six years, only dead bone deserts. Only the deserts came out unscathed, sand filling holes where bombs and humans had fallen, moving in the joints of rusty tanks, enveloping all innocent beings in golden coins worth nothing. The storm, unnatural; was unnerving, yet one could not afford to worry about the weather when survival was the main concern.

At least there was not going to be any issue finding water this night. The nights usually were bone chilling and lacking in any life other than the sandstorms and bone sharks of many long extinct animals, people. The desert usually was dry and with no rain, even the cacti shrivelled up and the sand never cooled with a hot hiss of steam, forever bubbling away in day heat. Life, usually was hard, with no respite from the weather, barely any ruin sheltering enough or safe enough to stay in for over a day, or hour, or minute and food lacking, only the abundance of rusty vehicles seemed to provide some ease.

The metal structures of the last five generations still stood, broadcasting poles and the cabins within still stood to broadcast some human life, a normality that only gave respite, that there were humans out there other than thugs or bandits or clans. There was no rain for metal to rust, it had all been swept up and hidden under a bomb decorated rug for the past three and a half decades, only heat. Reading old magazines from seventy years ago would have them believe that things would be mutated in the apocalypse, cows with two heads, zombies with bees etc. But no, no zombies, no mutations; only nothing. The act of nuclear nullification prevented all countries from the use of nuclear weaponry, nuclear energy, Anything nuclear after the meltdown of Brazil's largest power plant collapsed during a nuclear attack against the black cat terrorist group. That was the last time nuclear had been used when Brazil had fallen, the fog finally cleared and there was only death. And then there were only bombs left to burn, and burn they did.

The red truck finally rolled to a halt outside of the city, the brakes squeaking under the wait and the corroded metal groaning in sympathy for them. And there was silence. The thunder rolled through the silence and the familiar static of the wind licked against the vehicle like a wave. The clicking of asphalt chips gathering around the wheels as a bolt of lightning shot against some unknown land behind the rocky cliffs in front. The figure in the truck seemed to freeze for a moment, their hands gripped the once shiny wheel of the vehicle and they sat straight in the seat. Their eyes showed only the glint of the moon reflecting in them and the only sign that they were living was the flickering as their eyes subconsciously moved around like the ancient televisions that when they were turned on only showed raining static. Condensation gathered upon the windows as they let out a steady breath.

The door of the truck opened with the horrid squeaking of metal upon rust, two feet stood out covered in dust, muck and blood, the door slammed behind them leaving the pickup truck to rock from side to side. Battered pleather boots, the right having been cut down the side for a crudely made splint to keep the heavily damaged foot attached to the rest of the body, slowly turning infected yet the dying parlour of the skin could have passed it off as much much worse to anyone which was not medically inclined; which in this world, was the majority as most of the doctors and nurses had died out, saving instead of teaching.

Along with the feet came a makeshift crutch in the form of a bow and with a shaky breath the figure, now clearly a woman took a step forward, the sharp intake of breath could be audibly heard as the bow creaked under the weight that the woman was putting on it. She limped over to the back of the truck to open the door on the back. Reaching, she pulled a small tent, a sleeping bag and a heavy box containing an old portable grill from the years lost. Along with it, she hauled out by the hooves a recently deceased goat, there was no fish in the desert but the goats weren't so bad even if they took a stupidly long time to strip all useful materials from their body.

With a careless thud, she dropped the grill onto the dusty floor and occupied herself with the set up of the tent. She hobbled around and although skilled she still took an unneeded amount of time to set the black and mustard yellow tent up and to chuck the sleeping bag inside. Taking out a lighter she grabbed a piece of old newspaper from her pocket, lit it and simply dropped it into the oil filled grill and watched it light within seconds. She stood for a second, staring into the only harmless light around. With a groan, she slowly sat down and hauled the small carcass of the goat to her lap and uncaring of the blood soon had the main organs out of the body. She must have lost more blood than she thought because her breath had quickened to deep gasps, or maybe it was the after-effects of being shot with a barbed metal arrow from one of the locals manual turrets; She didn't know. Cutting the tubes from the liver she carelessly threw the meat onto the grill and let it erupt with a roaring sizzle. Gasping for breath she rested her head against the red metal of the truck, listening to its old engine tick and shudder.

The woman lifted herself up to take a square object out of her back pocket, she looked down at the small device and brushed the top of the case gently with her thumb. She pressed one of the buttons on top with a click, rested her head against her vehicle again and closed her eyes-

"'Hello Alex, it's your soon to be grandma' "a voice wavered out of the machine, the crackle of the machine made the voice of the person speaking sound even older but the smile was ever present.

"'All these new people today, they forget moments like these. New life, new shoes, new games to play…they forget. I remember when times were simpler, but then again so does any old person. Your mother would scoff now, she'd say 'mother, since when have you ever been old!?' And so on. But. I am old, I'm seventy-six now and since my man left, and I'm old now.'"

The crackle was all that remained for a moment, leaving the final part of the sun to set, the brilliant hues all but left the tormented land.

"'But that's not important, age is not important. It shouldn't be. And I know by the time you receive this your old grandma won't be here, I'll be wherever, doing whatever, being whoever. Times, they're changing, faster than ever. Just last week a successful cure was found for that horrible plague in India going about. There was the first ever electrical car that could drive as far as those abandoned diesel cars. Oh but everything is an antique, in time.'"

Silence.

"'There is always something I can't forget, no matter how old I get. The oldest memory I have, but a dream. A mountain, bigger than my Everest, and your Everest. The top, barren except for a small cabin, nothing that one would heed. But through the door and out the other, a city of flowers and light, a heaven not of this earth. I had that same dream again last night, maybe it means that my time here has drawn to a close, maybe…maybe I'll be there, with my William. Oh, I just know it, Alex, you'll be my little star one day, just like your brother, just like your mother. Death, death is not a scary thing when you've seen the things I've seen. Death is just a door you haven't opened in the house of life. It's like the attic of a house, as a child you are enraptured with it and still afraid because no one bothered to put a light in it. As an adult, you are irritated and afraid when you have to interact with it. When you get to my age, it's just an attic that you haven't really been in yet.'"

Water dripped softly onto the device, the tent taking most of the barrage from the rain.

"'Oh but I'm rambling, silly me, I do that. I have too many words to say but not enough time to plan when. Oh my little Alexandra, aren't you beautiful.'"

The warmth of the voice and the natural crackle of the voice's age died away softly, slowly.

She sniffed, her eyes wet with tears. She knew that the arrow had been poisoned but hadn't the time to check. No one ever seemed to have time to check.

A shaky breath exhaled from a figure, that slumped. Cold.  
\-----  
Alex woke up with a gasp, the light far too bright for her eyes. Shocked for a second before a searing pain took ahold of her where her foot was. Looking down, she realised that the searing pain was coming from where her foot should have been. She gagged for a second, shocked and nauseous at the sight of her own blood that had seeped through a bandage wrap. A wooden splint was attached on either side of her calf, notably much better than her old splint which lay on the side rotten and covered with her own blood. She sat up, her hands moving to where her foot had been when a firm hand pushed her back into the bed she was on.

"Don't move, you're still recovering from your injuries. Move again and I'll have you strapped to the bed." A firm mans voice intruded on her foggy mind, his threat borderline truth.

Looking up and trying to ignore the glare of the bright sunlight she was met with an ageing man with balding brown hair. His brow creased and the crinkles of his eyes glared down at her judgingly, daring her. The sudden threat of another human being and how she wasn't where she had last been jolted her survival instincts and she hurriedly backed up against the wall the bed was against.

"Get away!" She managed to babble out but the words her vocal cords produced seemed foreign and hoarse. In fact, they were foreign, the words she was saying were completely different than what she was trying to say. That terrified her even further and ignoring the searing pain of her stub she still managed to stick herself to the wooden walls even more. Her breath borderline hyperventilating and her eyes darted back and forth between the room and the man, desperately searching for the nearest exit. She thought the worse, a raider had found her in the night and had taken her for his own pleasure, taking him to his family's nearest medic to check her out. Or worse, the clans had found her in their territory and they were having parts of her body removed piece by piece.

"Calm down girl! I'm not going to touch a damn thing!" The man spluttered exasperatedly shaking his palms in front of him to prove that he was no harm. She relaxed slightly, peeling herself off of the wooden walls slightly if just a shade of a centimetre. Words were many things and there were many words, just as there were many meanings in those words.

"It's not like you can do anything anyways now with that leg of yours. When we found you the wound had completely killed off part of your foot, we had to have it removed or your entire leg would have had to have been amputated-

"That was dead skin! Not nerves!" She cried out tears forming in her eyes as the pain and the subject at hand finally got to her. Oh god, how was she meant to survive now, an amputee in the world of the devil was like walking into heaven with a burning bible. She would probably die here anyway, a slave to perverts and monsters. Either that or they would kick her out for their own humour, see how far she got before the land grasped her and dragged her down. Feeling light headed and her mind foggy she felt two firm hands shake her and the visage of the man and his brown pools can into her flickering vision.

"My name is Adan, I'm a…healer. If you continue like this I will really have to knock you out before you send the rest of the injured here into a panic." He growled, brow furrowing. She nodded with a high pitched whine as a particular part of her leg was bumped by the fabric on the bed.

He seemed to relax and the brown depths seemed to soften, if that were possible for the man, seemingly called Adan, he still looked harsh and angry "Good, now, what's your name. I can't just call you girl forever can I?"

"Y-yeah. My name…my.." She struggled for breath, the panic still not gone from her system stopping the breath on her tongue from forming any sound.

"Speak it girl, or are you brain damaged as well!?" He grimaced, or smiled, she wasn't sure.

"Alex, my name is Alex!" She stammered out eventually eyes widening.

"Alex? What an odd name for a lady. How old are you? No, not because of that, I need to record your information in the injury book for the supposed 'new healer'. Just, calm down, just simple things like your name, your age, height, weight and your injury."

"I'm twenty-three and I'm five foot four. Or something near that I…I haven't checked in thirteen years but I haven't grown much more, if a…any." She thought she saw him close his eyes and mutter something before his normal, grumpy expression returned to his face.

He nodded before giving her his hand, she stared back at the limb wide-eyed before looking back.

He sighed "look, I'm just going to get your weight. Then you can get back down, the sleeping salves still haven't worn off on you yet."

She nodded before taking his hand and with an unknown strength, she was hauled up with her arm over his shoulder to what seemed like a very, very old weighing scale.

"Hmm, you're too underweight, borderline what a beggar would be. Clearly not a hunter from the woods then, they can check that off of their list. I have more people to tend to but I'll have the next person to come in take you to the tavern for some good, warm food. Don't eat too fast or you'll find yourself throwing it back up again. And then I'll have you clean it up!"

"Checklist…what-" the question and her frown were interrupted by the bang of a heavy door, wooden probably, opening and closing broke their conversation. Two women walked into the building, once unsettlingly dangerous looking and the other slender, smaller.

"Ah, she's awake, good. Leliana and I have some questions for her" she dangerous looking woman replied curtly to an unspoken question. Alex could see now that this woman was clearly half bear, black short cut hair and black, strong, defiant eyes gave her a wild look and the scar among her face cut even more into her chiselled jawline. Her shoulders stood squarely in a stance that just demanded respect, authority, fear and inspired defiance at its highest peak. She was clad in iron like armour, speckles of darker grey gave her a rustic, battle-hardened look and the giant eye chiselled into her chest plate stared back at her almost as accusingly as its wearer.

Scared stiff she lost what little footing she had and slipped from Adan's grasp getting her head against a table behind her. As she fell her stump knocked and ground against the rough textured wooden floor causing her to cry out and grasp the splint as a wave of pain washed through her making her feel sick to the stomach and for bright lights to enter her vision along with a high pitched, deafening buzz.

A soft hand grasped her shoulder and warm green eyes entered her vision, along with a. Face, of course. The face though was what made her reel back even more in shock. The other woman had rushed to try and stop her fall, her face was long but no sharp or gaunt angles took to the shape. Brown messy hair that seemed as wild as the owner covered her face apart from the left side which had been pulled away behind pointed ears. Her nose was sharp but refused to stick out more than it needed to, just like everything else, all noticeable parts of the woman's face stuck out defiantly but only so far as if they became humble halfway through. The face though, the ears, the eyes were not what took her by surprise however-

"…grandma…?" She murmured and her eyes squinted in confusion, just like the woman's in front seemed to do the same thing.

"…did…did she just call you grandmother, Herald…?" The angry woman piped up, suddenly taken aback and the angry face was replaced with confusion.

"I…I believe so. Uh, I don't think that's possible little one, not to mention that we're not even the same race, but I've yet to have any offspring to even start to have grandchildren. That and you're almost my age…" the lilted voice of the woman looked to me, a small glimmer of amusement caught her eye making the green light up more.

"...Alex. An...and sorry...ears…the ears?" Alex spoke, and her face flushed. Obviously, this was not her grandmother, for many valid reasons. She must have been more drugged than she thought she had been.

"Yes, I'm an elf." She replied and a tone in her voice caused her to realise that the poor woman had probably had the same question directed at her at a completely meaning."

"But…what's an elf?" Alex felt stupid asking but it was better than anything the woman had obviously been expecting.

She seemed taken back, shocked even "you, don't know what an elf is?"

"No…should I? I…I'm not for around here, I think." Alex replied.

Adan spoke up suddenly obviously tired of the many questions

"This is all very nice and all but I have important work to do, so could all please leave and take Alex here to get some plain food, she is severely underweight, and I do not have time to look after her."

The elf perked up at that "Oh, sorry Adan I know you're very busy" she turned red and the tips of her ears turned bright red in embarrassment, she then turned to Alex

"So your name is Alex then? My name is Cameron and this is Cassandra. We found you three days ago in the morning outside Havens gates with unknown objects. Your wounds were very serious and I'm incredibly sorry but your foot was lost, you have a broken rib and you have fractured your leg from the metal projectile in your leg. We're not here to harm you, we just need to ask questions about where you came from. You see, we are currently in a hostile situation, we need to make sure you aren't a threat to us. But first, let's get you some food like Adan asked."

The sudden thought of food overpowered her mistrust of the two women, mostly the woman behind Cameron, Cassandra, who had not removed her hand from the hilt of her nasty looking blade the whole time, that and she hadn't let her eyes look anywhere else but at her. She still looked like she was about to run her through in seconds, and Alex knew that asleep could defend herself about just as far as she could throw the warrior.

"That…that would be nice. I…do you have anything I can…use to, get around?" The part where she couldn't walk anymore was still bizarre and fresh in her mind and she still hadn't quite grasped the feeling, the ghost of her foot still brushed against her leg and she almost believed it was still there for a moment if only just that; fifteen years of surviving on her own had sharpened her sharpened her senses and ability to know vital changes in her body, exterior, mainly. There had been a time when she would walk through the streets not realising she was bleeding everywhere. That time was long gone now. She still couldn't exactly walk, however, unless she was expected to live the rest of her probably short life being carried here and there.

Cameron's eyes widened a bit and she glanced around sympathetically "Adan? Do you have a crutch anywhere around here that we could borrow, please?" She called to the apothecary who had gone around a corner to deal with a man who had experienced a bad encounter with some form of horned beast.

"I'm an apothecary, not a healer…yes, yes Josephine had a batch delivered, they're underneath the table next to Cassandra. The elf turned around to see the warrior bear woman already reaching down to trap a crutch. She stepped over to Alex and reached out to give the crutch to her by the foot. She still looked like she wanted to run her through with her sharp sword, she hesitated.

Cassandra sighed exasperatedly "I'm not going to kill you. Take the crutch and get up." Alex looked at the handle of the crutch and sheepishly took it from her hand. Taking a breath to gain the strength she hauled herself up my her other leg by pressing herself against the wall once balancing she had another crutch handed to her by the elf woman which she took. Now properly standing she had the time to inspect her clothes. She wore the same mud brown top and the leather jacket she had found while scouring across a richer part of the world but her trousers had been taken off, presumably covered in a similar bacteria which could just make it worse, either that or they just looked awful. She knew they had been covered in blood, sand, mud and much, much worse things and bodily fluids. Mostly animals that she had found in a surge of luck. She now wore some thick overalls which was odd considering she was meant to be in a Desert with a temperature higher than e own internal temperature.

"You wear some odd clothes Alex. When we found you your breeches looked like they belonged to a peasant but your top and…other top looks like it's from a noble family, very well made. We are sorry but your equipment and tools had to be removed, we can't have any more spies wandering around." Cameron spoke up with a soft smile, observing her own self-inspection.

"Wh…where is the food" her stomach growled, regardless of their motives, Alex had never had anything close to a full meal, surviving on mainly fish, wild berries and any food found from the farmer's crops that had reclaimed the land. Call her a scavenger but when surviving the night was your only goal in life, opinions meant nothing.

Cameron chuckled slightly a warm sound lighting up her eyes again and Cassandra huffed in subtle humour.

"Come on, this way." She replied and gestured with her hand to a wooden door not quite fitted as the light spread through the gaps of the door. Alex followed as the door opened to her and she froze. White. Everything was white and cold with small little specks of dust…or other stuff? She didn't know, she'd never seen this before in all the places she had been and gone to.

The two sensed her hesitation and turned around "Hey you okay? You never seen snow before?" The elf asked, eyes squinting with humour and confusion.

"What's snow?" Alex asked, she felt dumb asking but her curiosity took over her. This stuff was white, pristine and constantly appearing in front of her.

"Wait, you've really never seen snow before?" Cassandra perked up looking genuinely surprised.

"Uh, no. The only weather I've been in is storms and desert weather. It's not cold where I am from." Tentatively she stepped into the cold tundra and looked around. Snow covered all of the quaint buildings and spiked wooden poles separated parts of the area. People wandered around in clothes finer than she had ever seen but from an era way past her time. Maybe they were a friendlier clan that had become obsessed with medieval times, there had been worse anyway. People turned to her and seemed to analyse her rough look, some clearly whispered either sympathetic or mocking remarks of her bedraggled look. An arm grasped her out of her observation, she looked to the owner of the hand, Cameron smiled slightly and tugged slightly hinting to follow her. Alex complied, she wasn't awake enough for this anyway.  
\-----

Hobbling along behind they made their way down a path and over to a nearby building. It was of a similar design to Adan's place but smoke raised from a small chimney and the smell of freshly cooked meats, bread and other delicacies ticketed her food starved nose. The strong tangy smell of that liquid that she had seen many of the raiders drink also hung around the air with the noise of many people talking and laughing. Alarming questions and anxiety bubbled up in the pit of her stomach and she felt the unyielding desire to run away. She didn't know these people and she didn't know their intentions. Suddenly the waft of food made its way to her and her stomach clenched desperately. She must have been more hungry than she thought she was because suddenly she was nearly passing Cassandra to get to the door.

Cameron chuckled slightly from the side of her mouth stepped sideways those the door for her. Walking in she was hit with the smell of heaven. People sat smiling and laughing and the bard on the side lit up the warm area. There was a warmth in the small building that she had never experienced before in any area she had been in.

"Flissa! An ale for our guest and a healthy dinner and Cassandra and I will have our usual drinks!" The small elf seemed to project her voice suddenly in a way she didn't think was capable of the woman. She smiled brightly at the woman in question as she walked in and sat down in a chair that seemed way too homey for just a tavern. Cassandra followed behind, passing her with a glare. Alex gulped and followed behind slowly sitting down at the table with a jerky movement.

A waitress walked by with a plate and handed them all their drinks. Cassandra had a richer coloured drink than to hers but it was still held in the same gigantic glass jug. Cameron, however, had a smaller deep red drink. Alex didn't know what any of them were and looked down to hers almost intimidated. Carefully she wrapped her hand around the drink and put it to her lips. She was shocked to find a sweet and sharp taste of the drink, she hadn't tasted anything with this much taste before and suddenly took a larger gulp.

"Calm down there, you drink like you've never drunk anything before." Cassandra smirked, the joke not quite reaching her eyes. Cameron didn't seem bothered by it and continued to laugh.

"I've never tasted anything so sweet! I've seen the raiders drinking stuff like this but I never thought it was safe! This is delicious!" Alex stammered out smiling brightly.

They both frowned slightly "I'm sorry, raiders?"

"You know the raiders, they scavenge all the decimated buildings, kill and slaughter any other lone survivors, you never met them?" She spoke slowly, confused.

"Alex, where are you from?" Cassandra spoke up this time.

"Uh well, I'm from Earth. There aren't really countries anymore since the total decimation of civilisation so I just from Earth. You know, or is it really isolated up here?" She nervously murmured looking between the two, the pit in her stomach getting deeper.

"Total decima…what? No, you're in Thedas. Orlais? Ferelden? No?" Cameron spoke up getting closer to the table, her eyes somehow went wider than they already were and the worried look did not fit the kind woman's face.

"Thedas? That was never a place on earth, it's not possible. I have to be on earth, oh can't just leave a planet." Her breath became quicker, a sinking feeling took hold where her heart was and dragged it downwards.

"Alex, what happened to your home? There hasn't been any war like that described in the books." Halfway through Cameron looked to Cassandra who then glanced back to Alex.

"Thirty-something years ago the world burned. Terror attacks all around the world had turned countries on themselves, then the use of nuclear was banned after Brazil had a nuclear meltdown that irradiated half of the country from a chain reaction making the continent incapable of retaining human life. Then the terror attacks turned to nuclear attacks and soon all the countries turned their weapons to each other an fired. Three-quarters of the human population was wiped out by the bombs, global warming, environmental danger and all the food were destroyed during the bombings." It was the history anyone bothered to remember anymore now, knowing who was the last president wasn't needed, knowing what happened on November didn't matter, only when humanity died.

All Alex got in return was horrified silence.

"Yes, I'm certain that we haven't had that. Very certain." Was the quiet voice of Cameron. The horrified silence was broken by a waitress wandering by and plopping a plate of food in front of her. Alex's voracious appetite hadn't left and she still wasn't sure why the two were so shocked, it was common knowledge anyway. She started eating and almost spat it out in shock, the food was hot and tasted of food. There was fluffy yellow mush that tasted very much like a potato and so more vegetables than she knew existed. And God, the meat was from a cattle, not just a goat with no meat on its bones. She'd never tasted this much before and it was overload for her tongue.

"What are these green things? They're delicious. You're so lucky you have nearby crops of so many vegetables and how did you get your hands on a cow? What do they look like.!?" She was practically jumping in her seat now not even realising the other two women's expressions. She knew her curiosity would catch her one day but at this point, she didn't care. Eventually, she settled down when she finished off the plate. Looking up at them she slowed down at the looks of their faces.

"Are you okay, you look like you've seen a ghost. Are their fumes around? Sometimes they can cause hallucinations." She frowned at them. They seemed hospitable enough.

Cameron gave her a weak smile "uh no, no fumes here. We…we just didn't know you were that hungry. If we knew we would have woke you up to feed you sooner. That's…all. Yes." The final part seemed more for herself than for Alex.

"Well then, welcome to Thedas, Alex." Cassandra welcomed, her name on the scary woman's lips still sounded strange, even to Alex herself.

"We will take you to our meeting room where you can say hello to all of my associates and we will explain what's going on as well. Okay?" Cameron continued. Alex nodded in reply and they prepared to leave. Getting down was easy, up, not so much. The floor was slippy and the medicine they must have given her made her feel lethargic now that she had food and drink in her stomach. Speaking of which there must have been something in the drink because she felt very light headed.

"If you've never had alcohol before you'll feel that way. After a while, you'll drink ale like it were water"Cassandra commented clasping her shoulder too roughly to be friendly. Cameron passed her the crutches while dropping some golden coins onto the table, most likely for Flissa. Soon they were out the door and slowly making their way up to a large giant stone church. It reminded her strongly of the church she had seen when she was driving her truck. The truck didn't mean much to her, she simply broke into it and fiddled with the open wires before it came…sort of, to life. If she ever decided to move from these unknown lands that somehow hadn't been affected by the war. She didn't care though, it had food and kind people. Somehow, she felt at home more than she had been in her entire life.

They made their way up the giant wooden doors and into the church, great stone pillars covered in humble architectural designs and delicately made stained glass that radiated with a humble hand of the creator decorated the church. All etch and curve beautiful and full of love. The entire building felt like it had been built by poor love. There was no exquisite beauty of a commercial hand but a kind touch of that of someone who believed in their religion wholeheartedly and adored their job. Alex was not religious, only clans seemed to be, but she still admired the care the church cradled in every nook and cranny.

She was lead through the opposite door and into a smaller room with a huge wooden table with a large map of the continent they were on. Well, it sort of looked like a continent but there seemed to be a lot of water around. A large group of people occupied the room and she suddenly felt cornered in the room of heavily armed people. Cameron and Cassandra didn't see to notice or just expected it anyways.

"Inquisition, this is our unexpected guest, Alex. Alex, this is the inquisition, we are a well…inquisition. We're trying to fix the world currently. Someone opened a breach to the fade which caused a tear in the sky and the conclave, a place that was being used to stop the Mage and Templars from killing each other and anyone else around them, well, it caused an explosion that killed many including the chantry's divine." The explanation had Alex's head reeling, Templars, mages, a chantry? It made no sense.

"Wait, what? Mages? The chantry? I'm sorry but none of that makes sense. There hasn't been any religious standing in years and the only magic that ever existed is in the little books that burn really easily." She stopped the elf halfway through waving her hand in front of her in confusion.

A rather snide voice piped up from a darker skinned woman with cheekbones as perfected as a swan is to water. Beautiful but offensive, very offensive.

"I'm sorry herald but I think your little guest seems to be more than just physically disabled and lacking any sense of style, but also rather addled. No magic? Preposterous! I have never heard such a ridiculous thing in my entire-

"Vivienne! Be nice, Alex isn't…from around Thedas, she's far from home of which is, troubled. Maybe magic hasn't been practised for a long time and has been forgotten." The elf reprimanded the other woman sharply, and although she had put it lightly, she was obviously trying to be subtle whether for her sake or the others.

"And anyway, we will explain further tomorrow when we all aren't exhausted from the travel to Orlais." Cassandra perked up, accent harsher in contrast to the two other women's rather English accents.

"Well if we are to do introductions, we might as well start." Perked up another darker tanned woman from behind a rather gruff looking man. She was wearing a rather…eccentric type of clothing that made her look more like food and less like a person surviving, obviously here had enough peace to look…odd.

Said woman stepped forwards "My name is Josephine Montiliyet I am the ambassador and diplomat for the inquisition I must apologise herald but four of us are currently away, Sera, Solas, Iron bull and Varric are currently preoccupied with a mission, whether it is important is another question with only Solas to watch them. God knows what Sera has gotten them into now." She turned to the Herald halfway through her introduction, so there were obviously more. Great...

"This is Cullen he is our war advisor and previously a Templar, Leliana who is our spymaster and Blackwall, our only warden. Obviously, you have already…met, Vivienne and Cassandra." She continued writing down something on that odd board she held.

"Your clothes are rather…battered. I'll have someone make you some new clothes and we will have a room arranged for your, predicament." She finished trying hard to look at the bandage as a part of it came undone. And fell to the floor.

"Oh, uh, sorry?" She shied away her face turning slightly red.

"Yes, it was rather unfortunate your injuries. What exactly did you do to it." A rather eloquent accent rang out from what she had previously thought had been just a stand with how far away in the dark the woman had been. Obviously, the spymaster that the oddly dressed woman was talking about. Something in the way the woman spoke reminded Alex of the snakes in the desert that would entice people into safety before snapping them up with their venom. She didn't trust Alex as far as Alex could run now.

"I wandered too close to some people and they shot me with a barbed arrow from one of their turrets. They then started to chase me which was why my splint was so badly made. But last I checked the wound hadn't been that bad…" She replied struggling not to step back.

"Yes, that does seem true with the large projectile we found. The only reason why you thought it wasn't so bad was that you hadn't taken out the barbed part. We didn't know that it was…barbed at the time. Apologies about that." A rather well-spoken man spoke up even though his appearance seemed gruff at most.

" Obviously you should have adhered to their request for space darling. My herald, I must implore but this girl seems less educated than a wild nug! Are you sure she shouldn't still be in Adan's care?" Vivienne spoke up, obviously not a fan. Alex didn't quite know how to react because the large staff she was sporting on her back looked incredibly dangerous for one without her bow or knives.

"Vivienne please be nice, you may not like our current situation but we cannot just leave an injured woman when we stand to aid innocents." A blonde haired man, most likely Cullen, his voice was rather pleasing to hear, especially since he hadn't given her a stink eye yet like almost all of them had. Alex decided that she liked the war counsellor more than the others. He seemed less likely to kill her first should she 'not adhere' to the inquisitions rules.

She huffed and walked past her, a breeze of floral perfume following her exit.

"Well Vivienne may not like you but we know that Sera does." The spymaster said after a brief moment of silence while watching her leave.

"Why?" Alex asked and Leliana smirked in return.

"As she put it, 'she may be missing a foot but she still has a nice bow and two big long blades' or some form of that." Alex let out a nervous chuckle.

" we will have a room set out for you, I think we are done here until everyone else comes back," Cameron stated and with that turned to leave as with everyone else.

On the way to exiting a rough hand grasped her by the arm almost causing her to lose her balance with her crutches. It was Cassandra who looked at her menacingly.

"I do not trust you, you suddenly appear with unknown objects and no proof to back you up. The only reason you aren't in a cell is that you're now incapable of defending yourself. You may think you're alright now but once the salves wear off, you'll quickly realise that we aren't just going to pamper you." And with that, she walked off briskly with her hand on the hilt of her sword. Alex just stared wide-eyed.


	2. Silence in the court

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hate this chapter, it's cringey and the amount of spelling mistakes was just, augh. Even re reading this back It makes me wonder how I passed English at all

'The she' bear had not been wrong when she said that there would be pain when the healing agents wore off, in fact, she was more than just right. Alex woke up in a cold sweat after a nightmare of twisted figures and rags, creatures twisted and malformed encompassing her, smothering her. Darkness consumed her in rotting arms and eyes that seemed to bore down into her skull.

Suddenly she was sitting up in a cold sweat with her lungs trying to cycle oxygen that seemed far too unwelcoming for her body. The thin covers she had been sleeping under were drenched in sweat. The moon that shone through her tents zip with the dark blue sky peering through from behind it seemed too friendly, nothing seemed trustworthy. She knew it wasn't real, that the nightmares weren't real, the monsters that had chased her were not real but steering eyes, they seemed too real to be true. Gasping for more breath she suddenly realised she had been reckless in her sleep when the pain from her leg shot straight through her nerves and vibrating through every piece of her own flesh. She felt as if her whole body was betraying her and her entire foot felt like it was on fire. As if she was turning to molten rock she felt spits and hisses of her flesh bubble from her bones. What was happening? Gasping she quickly moved to sit over and out of her sleeping bag when she felt the sudden movement of falling. She hit the ground before she could process it.

Crying out as her leg hit the hard ground and grunting as the rest of her reacted to gravity. She suddenly wasn't in the desert, there was no tent, she was in this unknown land that had no records in what little books there were. Taking a breath as sickness washed over her she felt the sweat run down her brow and her muscles vibrate as adrenaline ran through her system and into her blood. Her leg still felt hot and sticky with pain, so much so a vicious ringing in her ear deafened her for what seemed like forever. Glancing back she realised the situation she had now.

Moving onto her backside she pulled the now openly bleeding leg forwards. Now she wasn't in a small town but back where she had grown up in, the wilderness. Grabbing the wrapping bandages she had them unravelled, they would provide no use other than an infection now since she had decided to move so violently. She dared to glance down where her foot had been-

"Oh god, oh god. Shit! God…damnit" Alex decided not to look back at it ever again. Including the completely fine foot. It was a hurried cut. She looked back to the dresser next to her bed and bit her lip. The kind woman that had shown her the room had mentioned that there were a few of her items in the drawer, her lighter, the voice recorder and a small multi-use tool. She looked to the candle holder on the top of the cabinet and gulped.

There was a loud clatter as she reached for the required instruments. Her lighter and the bottom of the candle holder. Hurrying she desperately tried to cause a spark with the flint, her hands were sweaty and she was trying hard not to have a panic attack. She couldn't spare a breath of relief as the flame flickered into existence, not with what she was about to do.

It took a while for the brass metal to turn a deep amber colour with what little flame the lighter had, but soon, it was ready. Alex was not ready for what she was about to do. She'd seen other injured people do this, no, she'd heard other people do this. You never went to look, but the screams still were heard. She gulped, put a book she had found into her mouth and with one quick thrust out the hot curved metal to her bleeding leg.

Agony was the word to describe it. And agony was all that she could feel for minutes on end. She couldn't hear herself screaming or the hiss of the flesh searing itself, her fingers clawed against the textured wood floor and her eyes went blurry with salty tears. In a moment it was over and she threw the carbon scaled metal to the floor. She was hyperventilating now and her head was swimming in circles from the pain, but it was over; the bleeding had stopped.

Pulling herself to the wall of the building she had a chance to take a breath from this madness. She hadn't really analysed her surroundings as the maid showed her to the small cabin on the outskirts she had just seen the ready-made bed and collapsed onto it and fell into a dreamless slumber. Still light headed the room was really too swirly to be looked at but still she had let her survival instincts slip in not finding any nooks to hide in or dangers to remove, or even just basic supplies. She saw her first chance at luxury and all sense of survival left her.

The cabin was small, quaint built from wooden planks the walls all raced up just as the roof did but she was pleasantly surprised that the builders had decided to make it more exciting by having the frames of the Windows wrap around. The floor was made out of massive stones and it seemed that someone had made a great effort to keep the flooring level while keeping the stones as close to each other as possible. There was no upstairs she noted, realising that now it would be increasingly hard and frustrating to navigate herself up stairways. There were walls that separated the cosy cabin into small rooms, one being the small bedroom she was in. A sort of living room or study as it had a small desk and chair for writing at - not that it would matter as she could neither read or write, only the lucky could do basic literature and even then that was rare. There was also another room that hosted a fireplace and some bare tabletops, she guessed that this was a kitchen from the pot that hung over the fireplace. There were no toilets she noted but that was no issue for her, she would ask for a bucket later on if she managed to find anyone not willing to run her through from her nave to her chops.

Sighing she rested her head back against the wall in an effort to take everything in. She felt licks, whispers even, of her missing appendage, it buried her in her thoughts for what seemed like minutes. How had this happened to her, all of this…shit? It was as if some being was trying to mock her for no good reason other than humour. She felt like a rook on a chessboard and the King of the others hand had just taken her into their grasp, hot, clammy; intoxicatingly poisonous to her weak, primal mind. Alex had felt useless many times in her life, weak, stupid she could list all the negative emotions she had felt with the remaining population of the earth- little more than a billion- never once in her life had she felt so sunken into darkness. Was this what the echoes felt like when their world fell apart..? Did they feel like they were reaching out to anyone in the hopes that they would spare a glance to one echo? Did they hold their remaining dignity on their smallest finger and let it blow away into the hand of another like dust on a corpse? Did they scream until blood gushed down their throat only to hear their own echoes back as they shouted down the spiralling cave of the apocalypse?

She blacked out. Darkness.  
\-----

Sleeping on the floor, she realised was not a good idea and she quickly remembered why she always had a sleeping bag. She groaned as the light of the awakening world shone through a thick glass window and concentrated right onto her eyes. Sleep still catching itself over her she grimaced as she gasped a breath into the land of the living. Moving suddenly shot an aching pain down her neck and into her spine she moved to rub her neck and work out the knots of sleeping in a 90-degree angle against a wooden wall and a stone floor.

Opening her eyes and squinting as sunlight glared back almost begrudgingly because of her late rising. Looking down she shook her head and went to stand, this was going to be harder than she thought because as usual, falling was so much easier than standing back up again. She looked at the bed and bit her lip as she thought, she could use the bed to get herself up but the real question was where the hell where her crutches? She had last seen them when she fell onto the bed to sleep, she also noticed how just another cover had been placed over her instead of moving her under the actual covers, obviously everyone but she knew her limits. Putting both hands on the springy mattress she took a breath before hauling the rest of her body and eventually her foot into fully standing.

"Agh, ah!" She gasped falling straight into the mattress as her bare feet touched cold stone, bouncing off the mattress she almost ended up with cracking her head onto the floor below, barely catching herself with her hands. She took a breath frustration at her disability rising, she felt less than, useless, and she hated feeling useless. Being useless was terrifying, because that meant death, there was no useless person on earth because there was no useless person alive. Except for her, of course. She was going to have to find a loophole to this soon, she'd heard of prosthetics but they were resource expensive and she doubted that anyone would make her a prosthetic. Alex wasn't a skilled crafter and she was still impressed with her now missing bow.

This was no place to be having this discussion with herself, laying across her bed with only her hands to stop her from falling and with that she pushed herself into standing. To stop herself from falling over when turning to find her crutches she still leant against the bed. Locating them against the wall on the far side of the bedroom she managed to hop her way over to them, carefully trying not to catch her still throbbing stump against even the dust in the air. Crutches now firmly equipped she felt that she was somewhat prepared for whatever this archaic clan had to offer her, she didn't want to think about the rising idea that this was not earth, it was too good to think of with water and food in mass amounts, harvested for food instead of found rotting. Houses that weren't covered in the stench and theme of an apocalypse and weren't recycled areas for raiders or clans. The idea couldn't be true, wouldn't be true no one was ever that kind to one person.

She walked to the door and almost missed a too much-missed object, her backpack. She felt her breath quickening. As she moved towards it with it rested delicately against an end table. There was a note resting upon it with crisp clean handwriting adorning it. She appreciated the lovely handwriting but had no clue as to what any of it said, she stared at it for a moment with her brow furrowing in concentration as she tried to understand the words. Sighing she gave up and shouldered her pack, the only item she had left, fingered the note in one hand and opened the door.

Right in front of the elf she had met yesterday whose hand was inches away from knocking on the door. They stared a teacher other for a moment in confusion, shock, she didn't quite know but it had a light humorous air to it.

"You weren't coming out so I thought you were having trouble." Started the herald slowly as she realised she hadn't let her hand down and rightly did so.

"Sorry, I was just getting used to my surroundings." Alex replied and there was an awkward pause between the two.

"Ah, we are going to have to have a talk about your arrival in Haven today, hopefully, you're mo- gods above what happened to your leg!?" Cameron's eyes widened at the state of her leg.

"I lost it, I thought you knew that when you gave me crutches. Oh, I can see what you mean…" Alex looked down to see the remains of her new trousers burnt away and dried with blood, her stump looked like it had been dragged through a fire after being dunked in diesel.

"Great, those were my breeches as well. We didn't have time to find you a new pair so we had to find the closest fit. We didn't want any of the adventurous rookies finding you, we also didn't want any reputation for rookies being castrated." Alex realised as she said this that she was only just taller than the elf. It had seemed reasonable but she did feel bad for having burnt the breeches of the only person not willing to gut her from her nave to the chops.

"Sorry?" She replied nervously her thoughts going wild with how angry the elf must have been.

She just smiled "Don't worry I wouldn't have kept them anyway, yours were irreparable anyways so you needed some and we don't exactly have a tailor at hand here. I see you got my note and your strange pack those locks are incredibly weak" Cameron gestured to the note and the Zips on the backpack.

"Oh yes, sorry but I can't read what it says. Uh, n…not your fault I just can't read or write at all." She closed her eyes as the stutter came back halfway through her sentence almost throwing what she wanted to say off track.

Cameron frowned "you can't read or write? Is it because of where...oh sorry I'm acting like some pompous noble." She laughed nervously and covered her mouth as her ears turned pink.

"It's alright no one can really read or write anymore so it's no problem. I'm guessing because of how peaceful it is here that you have more time for luxuries then? I saw a lot of books yesterday is all, I've never seen that much paper in all my life, most of the libraries are empty because people use them for tinder because of the lack of tools and trees." She replied with her own smile which felt foreign to her, she never really smiled because there was no one to smile too.

"Peace? Thedas is in a whole war remember? But yes there is certainly more of a civilisation here than what your description of your home is like. Are you enjoying it here compared to, you know?" Cameron turned for them to start walking down the dirt road. Alex swore she saw a naked, pink mole rat scamper across the path further down, in this weather?

"It's…wonderful…different. I'm not used to someone actually healing me let alone having more than one person show an act of trust. I know you don't exactly trust me, to be honest, I don't exactly trust you, but I'm not here for any purpose and I don't care about anything but survival. Although now that's going to be hard once I go back." They were walking further down now and they were reaching the walled village, the sound of fighting soldiers and blacksmiths bounced energetically across the many boulders and to their ears. She must have been less well than she thought because she was already getting tired.

Cameron paused for a moment thinking about her reply "do you, want to go-"

"No." Alex interrupted her, never in her entire life had she ever thought of that place as home. Alex did not do homes, a wasteland was not a home when you couldn't even build yourself a small house for a week before natural disasters, raiders or just small problems like rain ruined them. She was feeling increasingly tired.

"What about your family, don't you have anyone that will miss you?" The elf seemed unable to wrap her head around the idea.

"I never had a family. No one misses anyone ever, missing means that you hope they'll come back, but if they're missing it means they died the day they left. You never meet the same person twice and if you do it's their skeleton. No, I do not have a father or a mother, no I have no siblings. There is no one to miss me and I haven't missed anyone yet." Alex replied curtly with her eyes closed in tiredness, pain and the ebbing feeling of her own little lie to herself. It didn't matter if Cameron believed it or not, just as long as she did she would be alright. She thought she saw the earth move from her vision.

"Oh. Sorry, that was insensitive of me. I should have used my common sense, living in a wasteland must be hard for families to exist. I'll, refrain from the subject if it upsets you so. It's hard for me to understand because as a Dalish elf I live in a clan you see, Clan Lavellan and we live as nomads, sort of." She put her hands behind her back in a way that radiated guilt or a subtle sense of the emotion.

They were now reaching the gates of Haven and the sounds of the village had come to life. The scavenger had never seen so many happy people in one area before and it stunned her. She stopped for a moment to take in the sight. Out by the right of her was a small camp of eight tents of which were obviously for the soldiers that were outside. They were adorned in full metal gear with green material to keep themselves warm in the cold lands. Some didn't even look old enough to carry their own armour up yet they all held the same faces and the same stance of a proud soldier. Two men on either side of the camp stood between the cluster of rookie soldiers, one she noticed was the blonde haired man from yesterday; the other was a fully armoured knight with a greatsword embedded in their armour.  
Walking round pass the tents she heard the clash of metal upon a shield and looked over to find The 'She Bear' in the flesh take down one of the training dummies. In one quick thrust, she had impaled her sword through its gut. She seemed to notice the scavenger's stare and placed the blade on the floor to glare at her with an icy countenance. Alex could almost see the warriors' mind go wild and suddenly that dummy looked an awful lot like her. She smiled awkwardly and moved on.

In front of her was a small building and courtyard, of which the clangs and bangs of an active blacksmith's were being emitted from. There was little to say about the building other than how many people were lined up outside, hundreds of you, old, male, female people were stood waiting by the entrance of the small area. They all looked like they came from many different ethnic backgrounds and while some seemed more suited towards fighting than others they still wore the same air of a warrior.

The proof was clear, this land certainly was at war as she turned her head to see the mass of people standing miles down the road.

Cameron led her back into the main area of Haven, this time she was more awake to inspect the small village of Haven. The most obvious thing in the village was the massive amounts of snow it seemed to have accumulated, not in a matter of years but in a mere night. Many of the villagers seemed to be hauling packs of snow out of the village and one house was completely barricaded by the snow and had been for a while by the panicked pounding of an angered man inside. Everything was made out of wood, most likely from the very pine trees that survived around the village and the roofs of the cabins were made to hold the snow on the roofs; while the idea of the wood rotting was very real Alex suspected that it was kept there to insulate the heat in the cabins, or just laziness. The roads were older than the houses which suggested that this had once been a destroyed village and for a while by the numerous amounts of moss on the cobbled path. The many sounds of the village seemed foreign to her, the creaking of the buildings and the echoing cries of children running around on the streets while the murmured voices of their parents talked below. Birds flew from the trees, black dots in the sky that shot back and forth with each other, a deathly game of chase. She then noticed the distinct scarring in the sky, it seemed to warp the very air around it and almost as if someone had broken pieces of the glass covering the painting of the sky and never replaced it.

She heard a cough from behind her turned to see Cameron gesturing towards the church like building in front of her. She chuckled nervously before following behind.

They now stood on the other side of the door to the war room, it always struck her as odd that the war room was in a building of peace and belief, or just ironic. Cameron turned to her with an odd expression on her face. The door behind the elf started to open.

"Now, last night the rest of our team came back, there is something rather important that I need to tell you. The man who goes by the name Iron Bull, he's not from anywhere near your world so just don't-" The woman was interrupted halfway through as a towering figure stood over the two. All Alex got was a glimpse of dark grey skin and then there were just horns.

In fact, that was all she managed to squeak out before she fell to the floor as a hand the size of her face went towards her.

"...What the fuck? I've seen lots of bowing but never like that before!" A rather southern drawl came out from the horned beast-man. There was now a she-bear and a beast-man, was everyone obsessed with scary animals? Except those were not fake horns from the way that his skin seemed to have grown around them and the colour of his skin was far too grey just for him to be ill. She was staring up at him from her foetal position on the stone floor when one of those face sized hands came and picked her up by the scruff of her top. She felt torso leave the ground steadily, then her feet until she was at eye level with the giant, which meant that she was dangling above the ground.

He squinted at her "Herald, I think your crippled human is broken." He half-joked to the woman behind her, Alex could distinctly head muffled snickers from the elf.

Alex merely looked at the horns "Horns."

He rose an eyebrow at her "Yes, those are horns. I thought you couldn't identify her origin herald, I think you're now broken" Oh god he probably thought she was being racist. He was going to squash her.

"No, no, 'Bull she's just never seen anything other than a human before. She did the same thing with me when she woke up. She told me that survival is her main goal and being racist means the opposite, so I doubt she means it, right Alex?" Cameron perked up from behind her looking up at her.

Alex shook her head "No, no, pretty horns; they suit you. Haha..." She grinned nervously at her and almost relaxed into a pile of goo when he chuckled back at her.

"I guess survival also means the ability to charm yourself out of any situation as well?" She chuckled slightly in his response and gave a weak smile back.

He put her down and then walked back into the war room where three other people stood. One was a thin male elf that stood with a regal mix of bullshit-ery and ancient knowledge. He wore rather plain slacks and robes but what struck her was the very bald head, his facial structure seemed that of a playboy apart from his bald head yet it seemed to show that some of his past he had left behind. The other was a small man, very small man the only thing big about him was his bear thick chest hair, his shoulders and the giant crossbow strapped to his back; clearly more cared for than her self-made bow that looked broken the first day it was made. He had brown hair that was tied in a small ponytail of sorts and big thick eyebrows that seemed to characterise his already fluid facial features even more. Lastly was another female elf but she seemed to hold herself more like a human, Cameron standing as if she knew she was a part of something that was not the inquisition – her clan – and the other elf standing, no, radiation a pompous knowledge. Her hair was cut very much as she had once cut her hair, by hand and without a mirror except hers were blonde locks instead of her light brown hair. The look on her face was the description of mischievousness and she seemed more or less ready to mess with anyone at any time.

"Now that we're all here, I think that it's time for further more introductions." Of which Cameron waved her hand, inviting everyone to do so.

Alex seemed outnumbered with everyone in the room staring at her like that so she just waved a hand slightly and nearly whispered "Hi, I'm Alex" she almost lost her footing when the female elf jumped over the table and leaned forward with her nose almost touching Alex's own. She gave a suggestive look and flicked her eyes up and down before stating in a rather obnoxious accent

"Nice bow indeed..." Alex tried to take a step back when she bumped into the other elf who had somehow crept up behind her.

"My name is Solas, I hear you came from another barren world." She would have taken offence if she hadn't barrelled almost into the dwarf from her own shock.

"Woah there scales, look where you're going. I know that 'the Varric Tethras' is very pleasing to the eye but that's no way to swoon over a man." Came another southern drawl and suddenly she was surrounded by people crazier than her. She didn't know how to react so she did the first thing that came to her mind: freeze and drop and with that she fell to the floor and covered her head.

"Um, is she alright? She ain't sick is she, because I do not want to catch whatever she has." The other female elf spoke after a while of silence.

More silence.

"Alex? You okay down there?" Cameron called down to her and a foot softly nudged her side.

She felt the same hands that have picked her up before wrap around her ribcage and pick her up before placing her back on her feet, well almost, she wobbled and grasped for the nearest object, a Cameron. In which the poor herald almost fell over.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Alex apologised hurriedly and then paused as a loud laugh came from the female elf.

"She's almost a better one than me! The name's Sera." She snickered and in reply, multiple groans followed.

"and mine's Varric, you've already met Tiny and Chuckles." The dwarf continued and she gulped when he winked at her, eyes going instantly to the crossbow.

The sound of the door opening behind her turned her attention to the group inviting themselves in, all the people she had met yesterday were now in the vicinity and were all well equipped for anything, and too equipped for her. The group gathered around the war table and suddenly literally all eyes were on her. She gulped.

Leliana began what was now an interrogation "So, you arrive here out of nowhere with no explanation to how you got here. You then explain that you come from a place which has violent groups that kill and slaughter of which is the outcome of your entire world being destroyed; how can we tell you're not one of them? Are you a spy of this Elder One? Or are you just a madwoman?" The many threats seemed even worse from the sharpness of her accent.

"No, I just woke up here, I...the last I remember was dying from blood loss in a desert. Who's the Elder One?" She replied, one wrong move and someone would run her through.

"And no evidence to prove this? My dear, you're not doing very good at this truth charade you have" Vivienne butted in from the side. And suddenly all the stares became a lot more suspicious and the glares became a whole lot more hostile, some had their hands already at their hilt.

"N-no no no! I do have evidence see!" And with that, she hurriedly slung her pack onto the war table trying not to squeak as she heard the sound of a half unsheathed blade. Emptying it of all her contents she then reached down to where a secret compartment kept all of her most delicate supplies and her most valued objects. First, she took out a small device, a radio that recorded important feeds from the start of the apocalypse until she left. Then she reached and pulled out a French newspaper – she had realised that one of the languages there was French and that they were written in the same language as well. And finally an old photobook, of which still held high value to her being the only – sort of- heirloom of her family.

"see! Evidence! Now don't kill me please!" She flung the newspaper into the assassin's hands.

There was a brief pause as she read the newspaper.

"So? What does it say?" Cassandra broke the silence with a rather curt tone of voice.

"It says 'Doom comes upon us all' and then further on it says 'A call to arms is cancelled on the up and coming World War Three and the war is brought to a swift end in the form of every country on earth turning on their brothers and sisters and firing every bomb they have in their possession. The list of already destroyed countries and those that have given up their embassy is expanding even more now but is currently recorded as one hundred and twenty-two including the recently made official country of...Tai...wan. The casualties are as expected in billions, the estimated amount of people lost are 6.3 billion out of the 9 billion on earth yesterday"

Silence, there was silence in the court.

"That's what it said? I just use it for tinder. There's the radio as well" Alex perked up and moved to turn it on.

"No, I don't think that's needed Alex, we ugh we will study this all in a different time. Instead, why don't you go find yourself some reasonable clothing from the blacksmith? You know where it is, yes?" Cameron grabbed her shoulder and shook her hand, as she did so something solid entered her palm.

"Buy yourself something nice. Alright?" Alex nodded in return and exited the war room.

When she looked into her palm, it was her grandmothers' tape that they had never returned. If it was out of the recorder then that meant that they had listened to it already. Which meant that they already knew that she was telling the truth. Those bastards!

Alex turned around and swung the door open with a snarl.

Those bastards.


	3. Crutches to walk upon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think I fixed most spelling errors, but if you see any just tell me, I hate unpolished work.

"You! You…bastards! You've already listened to the tape! You already know all about me!" She screamed as she threw the heavy wooden door open and almost stumbling at its surprising weight. They all seemed to turn round at the same time and multiple hands went to their hilts or similar weapons. Some just gaped in shock at the sudden abrasive entry of a bedraggled, angry woman barging inside loudly claiming them to be bastards. She hobbled into the room and almost tripped over in her vigour yet she continued to glare angrily at them with a snarl. Some of them just looked confused, presumably because they hadn't been there but she didn't care, the whole premise was that they lied and still treated her as if they didn't know who she was, the damn hypocrites!

"What right do you have to treat me with mistrust when you already know who I am and that what I say is the whole truth! What right do you have to judge me when you are treating me with the same mistrust you claim that I have! You damn hypocrites!" Alex felt her face heating up and she could imagine her skin turning red in her anger.

It was Vivienne who took a step forwards first "We presumed that your little box was magic based and-"

"Magic? Magic!? There has never been any magic where I'm from and those that have been, have been fakes, machines or in children's tales! No one has magic talents you fox eared buffoon!" She was gasping through angry breaths now.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's this claim of magical interference?" Varric spoke up from behind the two hostile women. He had an easy smile and trying to be a mediator kept his movements towards them slow as if they were rabid cats.

"I wouldn't be surprised with how primitive your home seems to be that you can even grasp the concept of basic tools to survive." Vivienne continued, she crossed her arms in front of her, cocked her hip to the side and the only facial expression she made was a small cock of the perfectly preened eyebrow.

Alex made weak gasping noises as a wave of rage rolled through her, as terrified as she was, pride was a very human aspect "You wouldn't know survival if it came and shoved itself up your posh arse! You don't know what it's like having to sleep fifty metres away from any metal, even your weapons because of the thunderstorms every night in the forests. You don't know what it's like having to somehow find wood to build fences every night so the wolves don't get you in the desert! There is no society, there is no money, no one is wealthy! There are buildings with walls and doors in them but no one can live there, there are places you can't even get to because they are metres deep from the day-long war, there are millions of weapons that no one can use to protect themselves from people that you can't identify as human as you look into their eyes and all you see is a wild animal!"

She hadn't realised she had dropped one of her crutches and made no effort to stop other than to gasp in the silent room.  
"You have clothes that protect you. You have food that won't kill you from just breathing it in from the ash in the grass. There are billions of humans on earth that live, breathe and think just like you, but none of them is people. You posh, luxury smothered, demon headed asshole, you don't know what it's like looking at your home and being brought up in utter hell!" Alex didn't realise that she was taking in deep ragged breaths and the sting in her eyes felt strongly like tears which was odd as she hadn't had a reason to cry for a very long time. Maybe it was the raw emotion and how utterly exhausted she suddenly felt yet still she refused to look away from the woman in front of her. She felt a hand give her crutch back to her.

Vivienne stared at her for what like minutes at an end with a blank expression before she looked away "She's telling the truth."

"Well, it was worth the effort," Leliana spoke up, obviously the person she was talking to and suddenly this numb rage took ahold of the scavenger and she felt the similar feeling of shock go through a few of the other people in the room.

"You wanted me to get angry." Alex wasn't staring at anything in particular now.

Leliana replied with an airy tone "yes, we wanted to see-" she was cut off as the other woman through the crutch that had just been returned into the air, grab the end and take a hard swing at the two respecting women. Both dodged the attack and she heard muffled yelling as many hands grabbed her by her shoulders in a vice-like grip and try to pull her down. Blinded by her flight or fight response she turned to lash out as she felt claws grasp at her already feeble state of mind and darkness biting at her body. The loud drawing of many blades rang in her ears shaking the very cores of them to the ground and flitting around in her head like a nest of angry wasps. Screams and yells invaded her blind head and all she saw was white from the sudden pain and exhaustion. Then there was darkness.

She hit the floor.  
\-----

She woke up in a fit. Everything was pitch black when her eyes flew open and her heart threatened to shatter her rib cage and tear through her skin. She moved to desperately remove whatever darkness must have been covering her face but failed as she found that tight bindings kept her limbs at an odd angle. She took another deep breath but all that came out were terrified gasps. Desperately she thrashed against whatever bound her. Alex tried to place both her feet on the ground to move her to a standing position yet chains kept her to the floor. The scent. The scent of smoke rose into her radius and sunk deep into her heart. She started to move even more desperately as she realised that she wasn't blinded from obstruction, she was merely deep below the ground and the smoke in the cellar became ceaseless. Screams rose from above and flashes of tiny slivers of the snake-like flame flicked through the cracks in the mortar ceiling.

She screamed.

Suddenly there was a wet cloth moving against her forehead. Her lungs made shuddering breaths as she came back to the reality as she ebbs of the hallucination, nightmare ended its terror on her mind. Opening her eyes she was met with old brick walls that were lit up by a torch alone, it hung alone with its embers slow, old. The cloth never stopped brushing against her head and a humming came forth from the hand that cooled her. It was an elderly woman with eyes that glinted like old coins in a shipwreck. Her silvery locks of hair were tied into a bun yet small rebels of her Arctic fox-like mane had escaped and hung by the sides of her face. Laugh lines of a happy life decorated her face and the scratches of an old warrior hung in the aura she emitted. Old, strong and yet an unyielding love came from her lips and her eyes and the made the room seem lighter upon a glance. Alex was enamoured with the woman and a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach took hold of her.

"You had a fever little one. Old Freja said she would take care of you. A pretty thing like you shouldn't be kept in such a poor condition. Oh, how you remind me of my little one, you look at me with such wonder I'd suspect you'd have never seen another woman before!" The woman still didn't stop her movement of the cloth and the coolness of its touch made her realise just how hot she felt.

"I see the nightmare has left you little one. You were making such horrid noises anyone would think this was a torture room. When I first came I couldn't even touch you, you were moving that violently. You're so young as well…always too young." This time she looked at Alex and she realised how sad the woman suddenly looked. She probably thought that she was a deranged soldier that was experiencing the after-effects of war.

She tried to look around. The room but her eyes wouldn't focus in the darkly lit room "Wh…where…?" Her voice croaked out as the sand in it scratched her throat. It felt scratchy and raw and the hot flesh of her skin seemed to spare to an extent in torturing her body. When she turned to move the clang of chains upon her wrists echoed within the room.

"You don't remember? You tried to swing at one of the heralds’ advisors after they tried to figure out if you were lying. A commendable effort but maybe try a blade instead of a glorified medical stick." The woman chuckled to herself even as the poor scavenger below her widened her eyes and looked more scared than a mouse fighting a lion.

"I tried to attack the spy woman. Oh god. I'm going to be killed aren't I, this is a cell. No no no!" Alex started to struggle against the constraints and her lethargic body. Panicked noises escaped from her mouth and she seemed to hyperventilate more and more every time she moved. That was until a firm hand pushed her chest to the stone floor.

"Calm down child, they're deciding if they should trust you in the room down the hallway. The walls may be thick down here but everyone can hear." The eye of the woman sparkled with a deep humour that didn't make her feel any braver than she already felt. Down the hallway, she could definitely hear muffled voices rising in an argument. A large quantity were female but the deep rumble suggested that the military advisor was in the heated debate as well. The woman was right, the sounds carried far.  
"These are trying times, fighting a war where you don't even know who your enemy is and where your allies are can only lead to speculation and distrust. The conclave was meant to be the answer to the rebel Mage and Templar conflict; all we got in return was an explosion, a wound in the sky and death. Now we fight an enemy that might even be one of us. They don't mean to try you, they just can't trust a woman who claims to come from another land."

She was silent then and Alex stared off into the hallway's abyss. There was nothing she could really say when their actions were justified like that. It was true, she had come from another place that they had never seen, a new world or different place it didn't matter; and honestly, she didn't want to think about here being a completely new world, the pit in her stomach reminded her of her own cowardice to the truth. Instead, she let the old woman continue to put a now room temperature cloth on her head while she stared into the dark hallway, the stench of moss and mineral making the accommodation less than appetising, yet familiar having spent her life in the forests. Alex remembered the forests well, she had grown up there in a secluded and lost area that somehow, had never seen the conflict that the deserts had a mere few miles away. She remembered how the expanse of trees and how the green moss brought the humid area to life like glittering emeralds. The mass amounts of foliage made it always look like the forest was tiny compared to the rest of the barren lands but this forest went for miles and miles. There were no paths on the ground other than those made by the creatures that lived there and there was always a symphony of birds to wake her up at early morn. And while it was beautiful and there were many thousands of creatures in the woods, every night a storm would thrash upon the land with a mighty anger. It would scream and howl until thousand-year-old roots upturns their heads and fell with great crashes upon the land. Its hand would shoot forth and spark the ground with white fire and in the morning, an area was always blackened by the billowing smoke from last nights storm.

She never noticed the elderly woman leave her thereafter placing a simple tray of food on the ground next to her. She was lost in her many thoughts now that she had the time to think about her own life. Often it was a struggle so strong it left little to ponder and to more take an action just to survive a few hours. Call her a coward but there wasn't any honour left in the drags of humanity's cigarette. The murmuring from the hallway had increased to audible mutters and the slam of an armoured hand upon a table echoed around the room. She could identify each voice now. The cool, calculated hum of the spymasters’ voice came around calmly into her ears, she couldn't stop the spark of anger that flickered to life for a brief second, even if she was justified. Then the deep rumble of Cullen spoke up, soft and unreadable it seemed hard to place where he stood. Finally, two other female voices bounced into earshot, the diplomat and Cameron's, both seemed fairly balanced yet she couldn't help but hear the slight increase in pitch. Whether it was hope or just madness, by whatever being was watching she hoped someone was fighting for her.

She looked to the plate next to her, Alex wasn't hungry but her mind told her that this might have been her last meal, and to die on an empty stomach would be to die giving nothing to the wolves to pick her feeble body apart. She tried to sit up but her body felt heavy and incapable of moving accurately. She settled for just grabbing whatever her hand clumsily grasped. Soon she realised that it was bread that contained almost as much gravel as the stones she lay upon did. There also seemed to be some sort of meat that she had never tasted before, tough and tasteless it reminded her of the arm length rats she used to chase and eat. She welcomed it all however and had finished eating almost as soon as she had started, the plate cleaned immaculately. She hadn't realised that she had been hungry, the fever must have been playing with her body's ability to detect basic needs.

So she lay there for what felt like hours until the stone floor dug into her spine and made her muscles groan under the unforgiving material. She lay there until her eyes went sideways after the torch she had been staring at burnt the liquid in her eyes away. She lay there until her body begged to let her sleep, pleading for the torture upon her weakened state to end. The arguing still hadn't stopped and it must have been hours since the woman had spoken to her, voices were being raised now and someone had thrust their hands multiple times upon a table until she swore she heard the wood crack under the pressure. Obviously, she had been forgotten under everything else so much more dangerous than her. She decided, since she wasn't going to die anytime soon, that she might as well relax. As much as laying on stone could be relaxing.

Closing her eyes she let the shouting and the dripping of moisture through the ceiling be drowned out, everything that had happened had left her exhausted. All the noises around her drowned out to an echoing gasp as the darkness took her once more. She fell asleep still inside the cell upon the hard stone.

Alex was startled awake when a loud clang of a door being slammed shut intruded on her state of mind. She blinked blearily eyed in the darkness as the torch had long since drained itself dry. She tensed as the distinct noise of a flame fizzled to life and neat, clean footsteps moved closer and closer to her cell. When the bright light of the torch being lit touched her eyes she squinted and tried to move too look at the figure in the room.

It was Cameron and the poor elf looked as tired as Alex felt deep shades of blue and brown tinted underneath her eyes and she looked almost gaunt and sickly in this light. She put the stick she had used to set the torch alight against the wall until it's light went out. She said nothing but hung her head and stepped closer towards the cell wall, she sighed deeply and crouched down to Alex's level.

"Leliana admits that what she had Vivienne do was not morally right. She apologises for that. However…gods above how do I put this…" She ran her gloved hand through her hair and rubbed her eyes tiredly as she struggled to find the words to say. Alex said nothing, she didn't know what to say.

Cameron was silent for a moment before continuing "We still can't completely trust you. So we've come to an agreement. You will be given a cabin nearby the chantry, you will have food and drink and we will find a way to make your disability…easier for you. However, you will have guards at your door at all times and at least two with you wherever you may find yourself. You will not be allowed weapons or armour and all signs of a weapon will be removed from your vicinity. You will have your items back, as long as nothing is kept from us again." She continued to not look directly at her, something in her posture made the young elf look years older than she was and in that moment Alex realised that Cameron, the figurehead of a rebellion, was only a few years apart from her.

"And if these rules are broken…? What will…" Alex was cut off.

"You will be given a public execution." The elf seemed disgusted even saying the word as she put her hand over her mouth and nodded as if to let herself understand the situation. There was silence for a moment and even the drip of the ceiling seemed to slow.

Cameron coughed slightly "We have already had a world of demons breach our world. We know the demons are dangerous. But your world? We know nothing, we didn't even know yours existed. How can we trust your world when there is only one person here to be an example. Gods…I have no idea what I'm doing." The elf seemed to mutter something in a strange language before she stood.

Still refusing to completely look at her, she procured an array of keys. Placing a large bronze key that had as much rust as one could get, turned the key in the lock with a screech of metal upon metal. The door opened as its hinges moaned in protest. Cameron gave her hand to help Alex up, of whom took it. A shot of pain arched up her back and to her neck and she let out a groan, spending so many hours on a stone floor had made her spine stiff and she was paying for it. It took longer than normal as she slipped a few times, trying to regain her footing it was a clumsy process, but soon they were walking out of the cell and up the stairs.

Stairs were a difficult process and in the end, Cameron ended up hauling the other woman by the shoulder after she had slipped multiple times with the crutches and almost a broken her jaw. They moved at a slow pace even as they reached the top. The doors of the chantry were still open and despite the cold Alex found herself staring at many people sat in prayer, regardless of their occupation. The flickering of candlelight and the incense of lavender and smoke tickled her nose. It was silent, respectful and whether the people were there religiously or just to say goodbye to a lost one, Alex found herself in awe of the sudden hush of humanity. Josephine walked past the two and nodded to them both, a way of wishing goodnight or good luck, she couldn't tell but she appreciated the hospitality.

They were outside now, it was quiet other than the creak of wood or lanterns moving in the wind. The mountain peaks seemed to blend in with the hazy blue of the midnight sky and…god…there were so many stars. There was no smoke or pollution blocking the view and Alex for once in her life found herself safe enough to be in awe of a world that had once stood as same with hers. Humanity was always going to be the end of itself, but this one time she allowed herself to love the species she was. Not for their power, their intelligence or their own physical appearance, but for just how simple the world could be for people and still have room to have beauty.

They hadn't stopped and soon they were at the door of a homely looking cabin, unusually larger than the others it seemed to be in a better shape; however she couldn't ignore how new many of the parts of the building looked. Cameron unlocked the door with a clunk as the ancient mechanics worked away briefly in their usage before the door creaked open on the uneven ground with a homely creak. The elf stepped in with a sense of belonging which caused Alex to pause briefly.

"Is…is this your home…?" Confusion perked in her tone and she seemed hesitant to step any further in what to her was the other woman's territory.

Cameron continued to light torches "it's just a brief moment as we find you a home. This cabin has two beds anyways. I thought you would prefer to be in here rather than in an accommodation provided by Leliana…?" Tired humour got caught in her voice and she could hear the smile as she continued to walk around.

She now had a chance to inspect the cabin. The design was the same as the one she had been in before, of which she had guessed was one of the herald's ally's home, it was much larger however and the floors were wood instead of stone. To her right there was a small unused kitchen, well, it hadn't been used for a kitchen; instead, it had many, many piles of paper and she swore she saw multiple sharp knives buried deep in the wall. It didn't escape the notice of how many wine bottles here placed on the tabletops, empty or not. On her left was what seemed to be a living room of sorts, many chairs and tables decorated the room as well as a desk, which actually held many broken weapons; apparently, Cameron had taken to a bow at one point and it had not ended well. The elf suddenly looked so humble in this brief show of her own private life, gone were the titles and expectations of this young woman, now she was merely a young woman that liked to drink when she was working or stressed and had a hard time with a bow. She wasn't a figurehead anymore in this cabin.

Walking through the door that she had just walked through Alex was brought to the bedroom. It was small and cosy, a carpet lay in the middle, patterned with bright, brilliant hues of blue and red. Two beds lay against each wall, one immaculately made and the other messy and unkempt with a pillow almost on the floor and the covers upturned in a ball. Alex could imagine the elf jumping literally out of bed to get all her errands finished. A small candle sat on the side of the dressing table which also held a suggestive amount of some clear liquid in a fancy bottle that looked too suspicious to be water. A separator was sat in front on Cameron's bed, most likely was the fact that many of her friends walked in while she was still asleep. The walls were bare except for a simple painting of another elf, the artist was no master but the paint and the brushstrokes were too soft to be a commissioned piece, instead, they were by a loving hand. Oddly there was a book in the middle of the room that had quite clearly been thrown across the room.

"Oh, um…Cassandra has a hard time grasping three in the morning. It is just a book I borrowed from home and forgot to give back, there are about fifty different copies anyways so there is no problem if I use it to deter Cassandra from barging in at three am asking to talk with her and train. Cullen doesn't even get up that early…" Cameron explained while waving a hand in the general direction of the book as she moved knives and a scary looking object off of her bed and onto the floor. Alex found herself chuckling.

"You don't have clothes, do you? I can lend you some of mine if you want?" The herald paused to look at Alex. For some reason the thought of borrowing clothes felt ridiculous, the fact that the rules of her own living were so strong and yet the elf still offered clothes.

"No, no, it's fine. I usually sleep in these anyways. It's the only real clothes that I have." Alex tentatively sat down on the bed opposite Cameron, who had turned the separator to change. Scrambling to undo her shoe, only her trousers had been replaced which she felt thankful for in having some normalcy in the recent events. Being in her won clothes felt safer to her than in someone else's or from a market. She unzipped her jacket and took off her top, now in her undershirt, a tan brown shirt that was way too large for her, she felt more vulnerable than she had been so far.

She laughed "at least now we're both vulnerable. If I act up you can run me through effectively, haha." While dark at best, she felt grounded in her macabre sense of humour. Cameron chuckled in response, now out of her leather and metal armour and in briefs and an undershirt like her. She placed her dual blades on a mounting board above her. Everything about the blades seemed different than what she had seen the other armour clad people wear, Alex presumed that this was from home as well.  
"Are you sure you don't mind me sleeping here, I don't mind sleeping outside. In fact, I've never really slept inside a building before. It's…nice." She looked around again trying not to look at Cameron as her anxiety crept up to her neck.

"There are guards already outside the door, I can guarantee that. And anyway, at home I often have others from my family sleep in the same area as me. So it doesn't matter if you snore!" She teased her and Alex left out a numerous huff.

Carefully she crept into the bed and sat down slowly as if the bed were about to eat her. When nothing happened she let herself lay down fully. She let out a groan, the bed so the comfiest thing she had ever laid on and the cover was so soft her stump didn't completely sting when she moved in the covers. Everything about the bed was pure heaven. She heard the creak of Cameron getting into her bed and then the clang of another small knife hitting the floor, they looked at it for a moment as it broke the silence before the other woman turned and pinched out the light in the room. Now in darkness, Alex blinked, apparently, this happened a lot.

"Uh, goodnight." She mumbled into the dark room.  
"…g'night…" And soon there was silence.  
Alex closed her eyes and let herself sleep with some amount of safety.


	4. Horses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before you say anything, prosthetics have been around for centuries, an Egyptian prosthetic toe was found once and is considered the oldest prosthetic to exist. Considering dragon age has trebuchets and medieval design, I think we can all come to the conclusion that prosthetics must exist. I don't want my character to have things given on a silver platter, but it's just painful when a character constantly struggles and fails, it's nice to win simple things sometimes.
> 
> Re reading this back when proof reading, I spelt Thedas, like Fedas. One day, I won't fuck up a place's name.

Alex had spent the last few days inside the Herald's cabin and to say that it had been awkward was the largest understatement she had ever made. She quickly realised that the inquisition meant business as wherever she seemed to go there were many a number of threatening guards looming over her and she had started to subconsciously pick out exactly who was a guard and who was just a bystander that was interested in the 'Ghost girl'. That was another new thing, the nickname, it had started off as a flippant comment from one of the citizens of haven and suddenly that was all she was known as; Ghosty if she was lucky enough to have buried herself in more than half a minute conversation with someone. While some of the Herald’s best buddies had somewhat warmed up to her, many still watched her with a wary eye or outright expressed their distrust of her and she couldn't deny them that their lack of trust wasn't supportable, however it got old quite quickly after Cassandra had given Alex her third lecture after just two days of consciously being awake for the whole day. Those such as Varric, Ironbull and Sera had warmed up to her much faster than expected however unlike Sera, both Varric and Ironbull met her with some ulterior motive that she couldn't quite grasp yet. Alex outright denied herself to even be in the same room as Leliana and Vivienne which then meant that she almost never went into the chantry unless cajoled enough.

That was another problem that she had faced, the sudden loss of her leg had left her lethargic as she was faced with days of pain and ghostly touches of what once was. One time she had been shaken awake by a frantic Cameron as she relived the moment in her life that truly screwed her up. She had experienced moments where reality seemed to drip away like thick blood as she was left screaming and thrashing violently where she had once stood. The most intimidating problem was the wave of depression as she struggled to realise how she would live from now on, how if she ever somewhere got back to home, she would be little more than a mouse in the eyes of the great hyenas’ eyes of humanity. That was what terrified her, the fact Alex was now incapable of surviving a night alone without terror and pain.

Instead of finding something interactive to keep herself away from such dark thoughts, Alex found herself falling deeper into the abyss and eventually, refused to even move out of her cot in the morning, she simply lay there with glassy eyes as her mind replayed the moments of her life over and over again. She never even realised when the tears rolled down her face until a hand wiped them away hours later.

Alex felt useless. She hated it, and yet more weeks went by.

\-----

It had been four weeks now of staying inside Cameron's cabin and after the fifth day she had given up going outside, manoeuvring herself was far too difficult. She heard the angry shuffle of the guards outside her door, most likely hungry as the dregs of the morning rose with the sun having stood there since last night. The birds came alive around four in the morning and she could hear the many symphonies of tiny songs and the beats of feathers as lithe bodies flitted around Haven and the icy lands. She could hear the creak as wheelbarrows and wooden crates filled with goodies sent from cities and farmers were carried around the pathway down to the chantry to help those in need. Alex heard the rabble of voices outside her door as citizens gathered around in the morning light to greet eachother. She had been listening to this since the first day of staying in the cabin, sleep not meeting her mind until she literally could not keep herself conscious anymore during the day, which happened at random times of each day. Alex had noticed the lack of sensitivity in her limbs, staying in one spot for days on end had slowly weakened what little muscle she had and to move felt too much of an effort.

She felt prepared to continue on her daily routine, to be forgotten in the warmth of her covers and remember all the moments in her life until she got herself killed. That was until a gloved hand struck her on the shoulder and an impish face filled her vision. Shocked she instinctively jerked back which didn't help the dim pain in her spine at all.

"Good morning Alex!" A rather awake Herald almost shouted to her. The face of the older woman filled mischief and she felt rather scared at the look, especially that it was directed at her in particular. A second later the Herald disappeared and she felt covers being ripped from her body as she was suddenly enveloped in Haven's unending coldness. Cameron laughed brightly as Alex hugged her limbs to her body even more and shivered.

"Since I have a few days to myself now that I've got that business in the Storm coast finished, I thought I'd finally get you up instead of you moping around in my cabin. I even got some good clothes for you instead of those bloody rags!" The elf was practically running around now as her excitement let loose the proof that she was far too young to be the leader of a force as lights practically bounced in her eyes. Alex was having a hard time tracking Cameron as she zipped across the room with ease.  
"I really don't think I want to…" Alex never got to finish her sentence as an arm grabbed her wrist and hoisted her up into a sitting position. All she managed to do was groan at the woman. Alex hissed as her bare foot touched the stone floor, it was freezing compared to that of her warm bed. Oh her bed, her warm, warm bed. If only she could just….

"Oh, oh yes you do!" Cameron grinned at her and suddenly Alex was having her bloody briefs taken off of her as new ones being pulled onto her body. Next minute the shirt that was far too big for her was stripped of her body and a new one was placed over her head, Alex couldn't comprehend what was happening as she was dragged across the room having multiple pieces of cloth replaced and new ones being put on, hard leather with metal guilds were being put over her head and other parts were strapped to her limbs. Cameron was running around at a speed Alex had never seen before even from the wild animals she had hunted in the past, one moment she was standing in front of the drawer and the next she was on the other side of the room. Cameron was a blur in the room.

"I know you’re having difficulty moving around so I thought I would get something that would help you from a carpenter I found in the Hinterlands." She had now stopped darting around the room letting Alex precariously lean against an end table in the middle of the room as she struggled to find a balance. Cameron stood in front of her with an impish look on her face as she struggled to stay in one spot, jumping up and down on her bare feet with her hands behind her back as she reached to where the pile of clothes had been.

"It's really simple, but…" And with that she brought out a smooth wooden object, the top was almost a bowl shape with leather straps attached in three different points, then below that was a chunk of wood in the shape of a smoothed cone. At the end of the cone, a wooden joint that was held together out a metal bolt was another piece of wood shaped almost like a foot, the wood would have been tightly held together with the thin metal washers which would have kept the foot part at an angle until physically moved. It was crudely made which showed signs that whoever had made it had never really made one before, there were bumps where the piece showed signs of a makers hand.

"It's a leg, for you." The elf was still smiling at Alex as the scavenger put the pieces together slowly. As Cameron walked closer to her with the leg still held in front of her Alex hesitantly looked to the prosthetic with an anxious unease.

"Why would you get me a new leg? You don't know me." She kept glancing at the woman in front of her and the leg as she held herself steadily upright on the end table.

Cameron seemed to smile even more as she excitedly jumped up and down finding an unending supply of happiness inside herself.

"I figured it was time you started to get up, you're going to be here for a while now whether you like it or not…I told Leliana and Cassandra it was because you could be efficient and help us. It was organised and delivered while I was in the Storm Coast"  
Alex still looked at the prosthetic with unease, kindness was not a common aspect of a person, and if it was, they were usually found dead afterwards; or never found at all, depending on the diet of the people. Slowly, as if the wooden object was a bear trap, she took the leg from Cameron. The elf took that as an incentive to continue to dress the younger girl up further.  
Suddenly the scavenger found herself being thrown back onto her still warm bed and suddenly strapped with a wooden object to her stump and then being pulled back up. She looked down at her leg as the Herald stood in front of her helping the poor girl find balance, the joint of the foot was incredibly stiff and no amount of Alex's weak attempts to balance were moving it flat against the cobbled ground.

"I…I'm not sure what just happened," Alex spoke up with a lost look to Cameron who smiled sheepishly in response.  
"Ah, apologies, sometimes I get ahead of myself. Let me help you, hang on for a moment." The elf bent down and moved the joint of the foot so it lay flat on the ground allowing Alex a moment of respite as she finally stood still on two feet for the first time in four weeks. The wood felt weird to her as the smoothed piece met her slowly healing limb, the leather straps were incredibly tight as to keep it connected, to stand without her crutch was such an odd sensation that she felt almost as if she were defying the basic laws of physics and floating. To stand and not feel the catch of the cobble under her foot like her other one did, to not feel the weight in her calf but the small pressure of the wood against her knee.

"You can stand, that's great however I have a feeling that the moment you try to walk you'll fall over." Cameron chuckled as she inspected Alex, a hand covered her mouth and her arm rested on her other arm as it wrapped around her torso, she was thinking as Alex could see from the crease in her brow.

"I wouldn't say that, I've not tried to-" Alex was cut off as she scrambled to hold onto the end table again as she rocked forwards.

The elf chuckled light-heartedly "You're almost as clumsy as Sera is drunk, and sober." And with that, she leaned forward and helped the unsteady scavenger to her crutches, of which had gathered dust and cobwebs from their lack of use.

Alex, now securely strapped in new leather armour and her prosthetic, still felt as unstable as before as she hobbled out of the cabin with Cameron soon behind her at a slow pace. The bright morning light that bounced off of the snow was too much for her eyes that had grown soft in the warm candlelight that barely lit up a metre radius. She covered her eyes with one of her hands which almost tripped a man walking past with her crutch. Cameron caught up to her and pulled on her left elbow Alex looked at the elf as she moved her head in the direction of the chantry's snow-covered building. Alex huffed, she hated that building, or more specifically, the people in there.

"I thought you could come with some of my team to The Hinterlands, we're just doing some simple errands around the crossroads trying to regain some balance and help the people so there should be no real problem with enemies, unless   
someone somehow falls down the mountain paths again and straight into the war zone." They were both walking at a leisurely pace now as Alex gained the hang of letting her weight on the wooden foot and letting the joint right her.

"Falling down the path? Isn't that dangerous?" She looked towards the woman who chuckled slightly.

"Solas was alright and ’The’ Iron Bull was clad in armour so they were both alright. The only issue was that they had to fight their way out to get back to Cassandra and I."

"Oh, that's…that's kind of funny." Alex let herself smile briefly, she was still anxious and aware that any of her actions could get her killed.

They were now entering the chantry and Alex noticed with a quiet glee that Vivienne was not where she usually was, near the entrance, which often left Alex to the mercy of the icy woman's mouth. Instead, the chantry was quiet and dark, multiple people stood or sat in prayer clad in white and red cloth. Candles lit up the building which made the red banners stand out with a fiery glow. Alex would have said that it looked beautiful if she had cared enough to spend time and truly stare at the building that seemed to have lit itself up in a matter of seconds.

They walked past an already pristine Josephine who nodded to the Herald in greetings and a nervous nod to the hobbling Alex. The two smiled back briefly.

Now entering the war room, Alex was met with three other faces. Solas, Varric and Cassandra both stood around the table in full armour and weapons. She felt weary under the eye of Cassandra, while the seeker openly distrusted her, she didn't go out of her way to make her life miserable and the woman had good reasoning for her dislike of the scavenger. She was sure that Solas merely looked at her like an interesting puzzle that he hadn't solved yet and Varric always spoke to her as if he was testing the legitimacy of her truth.

"Morning Ghosty, I see that The Herald gave you your new leg." The rumble of Varric's voice welcomed her in greeting.  
"Good morning Varric. Yes, it's…a weird feeling." She nodded, Alex still couldn't quite reach almost anyone's eyes and she preferred to keep her head down to the ground more than anything. And preferably as close to The Herald as physically possible.

"Ah, you'll get used to it eventually. It's like learning a new skill, keep going at it and soon you'll be able to teach people." He chuckled slightly in response to her nervousness.

They were all now in the room and Alex felt like a sore thumb, she did not have a weapon and three of the others clearly did not quite trust her and all of them had very dangerous weapons. She still couldn't quite grasp why Solas and Vivienne had staffs as their main weapon, even though she had seen the ice woman wield a small dagger. Surely a blade or bow would have been much more effective. She imagined Solas disgruntled smacking an iron clad warrior on the head and then educating them on the proper etiquette of ‘The Fade’ whatever that was. She’d heard too many of those conversations not to know the basics of a spirit and demon. She still didn’t quite understand ‘what’ they were, he never really gave definitive answers.

Cameron clapped her hands as she walked towards the group "I know we aren't quite as trusting as others but I felt it was necessary for Alex to at least have a look outside of Haven, I know it's not the entertainment capital of Thedas. We're just going to travel to the Hinterlands to help in the Crossroads, so it should be pretty tame. Do you want to go get your steeds and I'll sort our new friend out?" The brief was short but it gave time for Alex to feel some safety at Cameron's knowledge of her relationships with the others. As told, the other three left to go get their steeds and any necessary equipment.  
It was just once again Cameron and Alex of which turned to face her.

"I know you're not as brave with that such as Cassandra but trust me, she isn't going to run you through without reason. She can act brashly but at the end of the day she is very reasonable, trust me, she tried to run me through once and now we are on the same team. We once even had tea together. I've brought them all because they can all help with the refugees. Solas has knowledge of healing and Varric is able to talk his way out of almost anything, you would be surprised by how many stingy merchants there are there. Cassandra is a good fighter as well and I have a feeling we are going to need her help if we need any serious muscle. Trust me, I'm not that bad at tactics, I've done this before." Cameron had placed her hand on Alex's shoulder forcing the girl to look directly into the other woman's eyes.

Alex nodded hurriedly. "okay." To which Cameron grinned in response.

"Good, just wait a second." The Herald moved around the table and ducked down for a second or two as she picked up something.

She came back again after a while with a wooden bow in her hand and a full quiver of arrows, the bow was a smooth lighter wood, almost a birch shade. The handle of the bow was wrapped in a deep red leather and a dark metal plating lined the front of the bow with handmade rivets up until the wood began to thin. The wood was carved back towards the drawstring in an almost ninety-degree angle before moving forwards again where metal was attached. The plates of metal covered over where the string was drawn through the metal and a wooden notch kept the string tight. The top of the plates were sharpened so one could jab at an enemy if they gained too much close of a ground. The bow was completely symmetrical and compared to Alex's badly made bow, was beautiful.

"Even though this should be a pretty normal outing and you aren't completely trusted, you can't just go out without any weapon to defend yourself." Cameron smiled slightly and gestured for her to take the gift.

"Oh, oh. Wow, t-thanks!" She nervously scrambled to grasp the bow and quiver in her hands as she smiled brightly at the Herald as she clutched the bow to her chest and slung the quiver over her back. To have a bow in her hand and a quiver on her back felt more natural to her than she realised. She’d missed this.

"That's the brightest I've seen you smile since you got here, I'll have to remind myself if ever Alex is feeling down give her a bow." Cameron chuckled at the scavengers glee.

They began to walk out of the chantry and Alex was still clutching the bow as if she were a child that had just been given a toy.  
"I figured you were an archer from the remains of that tool we found when you appeared. I'm glad you like it, it was a set we found in a chest while out in the Storm Coast, we were lucky to find the quiver full as well so we don't have to weigh anything and we can get the schematics for more now. Now, do you know how to ride a horse?" The Herald stopped outside Haven's gate and waved her hand towards a coffee dappled mare. Alex froze.

"Um…"

The smile on Cameron's face became slightly more devious.

The horse just huffed at her.

\-----  
Alex could ride a horse, she was severely rusty with the poor mare however and she seemed quick to panic over simple actions, one too many times had she dropped the reigns and clutched the horses neck. The mare was a gentle soul and stood patiently whenever the small scavenger would shriek and clutch the muscled neck of the horse, she would dig the straps right into her poor mares hips as well and yet the only response was the flick of white ears.

"I thought you said you could ride. You are riding the mare that we use to teach children and yet you are worse than a four year old." Cassandra glibly commented next to her on her dark grey stallion.

Alex sent a steaming look to the seeker as she struggled to sit back onto the saddle after sliding off again.  
"I said I did. Eight Suns ago! My horse was killed by wolves after I got out of the forest." She protested back, when she got nothing in reply other than a huff and Cassandra leaving her in the dirt.

Cameron called back to her from the front "Come on Alex, we need to get to the camping spot for at least midnight! By the rate we're going we will get there by next week!" When all the Herald heard was a grunt and the clap of reigns she let out a loud laugh.

They were slightly late as Cameron had said and it was late into the evening. The snowy forest was covered in glistening white snow and every tree wore a heavy covering of the cold substance. There was barely any wind which brought the forest to a standstill and while the birds had long since finished their songs and had settled down, only the smallest number of a black shadow darting between trees and into the sky, the night was still abuzz with insects and other wildlife. The pathway they were walking upon was muddy with use and the gravel had long since been engorged by the mud by boot, hoof and carriage. To the four adventurers at the front, it was a calm and comfortable silence, to the one person at the far back, it was an uncomfortable and anxiety filled travel.

Alex had gotten used to the horse after eight hours in the saddle with little use and while her groin and thighs were paying the price, she was glad she had been given such a calm mare as her steed. Old habits and knowledge from years past had risen to the surface and she felt more sure of herself than she had in the past four weeks. Being at the back gave her chance to go unnoticed by the others and gather her thoughts while looking at the sights.

As the night and the moon came into the world, creatures settled and the forest seemed to turn silent within the minutes. Insects that had once been loud and proud of their stature hunkered down to sleep until morning. Deer and critters alike found home and burrows in the plethora of trees and were soon fast asleep safe in their home or with their herd. The night gave only way for the wind and the predators in the night.

The stars, there were so many. Where Alex was from, the pollution from years past had covered the sky in a thick smog like acrylic black paint smearing over a masterpiece. Even years after humanity fell, their descendants still experienced the trauma they had waked upon the world and were left to watch as their home patched itself back up with stitches and scalpels. The stars here were alight with white flame and the sky looked so grand and each star looked as if they were miles apart and no matter how far one would grasp, no one would ever reach the lights of the sky.

The beauty of the painterly sky was interrupted as from the corner of her eye black shadows darted only metres away from where the five allies walked, the flash of green lights disappeared with the shadows. The movement did not go unnoticed by the experienced warriors and multiple hands came up and gestured for the group to huddle.

"Wolves." Cassandra whispered under her breath as she drew her sword. Along with the seeker, Varric, Solas and Cameron all drew their weapons. Cameron wielded her two daggers and Alex heard the click of Varric readying his crossbow.

There was a sudden change in the wind, Alex listened to the urge to draw her bow and draw an arrow to the notch. She saw the shadow even before she heard the wolf, it was huge and its fur was tattered and rough and looked oily with an unknown substance. The eyes were what caught her, bright green lights that seemed to echo the madness within the orbs of light. Wolf eyes did not glow.

The creature lunged towards her and the mare with a deep snarl as its lips curled to show large bloody fangs. She acted more out of instinct than anything and within seconds Alex had drawn the bow and shot.

The wolf dropped to the ground dead with a gurgle as the arrow pierced its neck.

The forest erupted with shadows.

One shot straight towards Solas and was quickly dealt with as the elf thrust the blade of his staff straight into the creature’s skull.

Another three circled Cameron, one tried to lunge for the elf. Alex swore she saw the elf move forwards from the seat of the saddle at a speed incapable of any creature as she was suddenly in front of one and had both the blades embedded on either side of its neck. Four more already had come from the dark of the trees and started to attack Varric, of which had just impaled one through the stomach.

Alex had lost concentration however as she was suddenly grabbed by her prosthetic straight off of the horse, she hit the ground with a thud and her head smacked against the hard ground which caused a high pitch ring in her head as her vision shifted. In her confusion, she didn't notice the set of teeth and muscled torso rush towards her until the last moment which gave her very little time to push up the head of the wolf as its jaws lunged at her face and barely missed as they snapped shut inches from her neck.

The crazed wolf snarled and snapped its jaws in a desperate attempt to get to her, it's saliva sprayed forth in front of her face as she struggled with keeping the behemoth like canine off of her.  
She glanced to where her bow had fallen when she had been dragged off of her steed, she glanced from where it lay on her stomach.

Grunting she managed to grip the front with her knees and with a sharp thrust upwards she impaled the rabid canine through its throat. The creature struggled to release the sharp tip from its windpipes yet Alex never gave up and continued to thrust the blade straight into its neck until she managed to knock it off of her.

It snarled and went for a final attack only to have a snapped arrow impale its eye and straight through. It fell, limp. The scramble was over.

Alex lay panting with her limbs spread out, the fall and the adrenaline made her aware and confused at the same time. She winced when she moved, when she had used the bow to gut the creature, the other end had slightly sunk into her thigh.  
An armoured hand moved into her vision and soon a blood-covered Cassandra was hauling the smaller girl up.  
"We need to get to the camp spot by midnight, you can rest and patch yourself up then. For now, we ride." And with a pat on the shoulder she was gone, Alex still couldn't help the spark of self-pride for the slightly humorous tone the seeker had held. She moved towards her horse using her bow as a crutch.

Alex smiled slightly.

\-----  
The camping spot was nothing amazing. Merely a collection of fallen tree logs to sit on and a ring of stones for a campfire. As soon as they had arrived, Varric had moved to a far away area and started digging and Cameron and Cassandra sorted out tents and the campfire while Solas dragged her off to a lot to heal her wounds.

Alex was too tired to even notice the slightly green glow having spent ten hours riding and two of them injured. She let the elf do whatever he was doing and murmured a quiet thank you as she stood and walked to the nearest tent.

The tents were made so that two had to sleep in a tent at each time, and there being five of them it was decided that Cameron would have a tent to herself, finally sleeping on her own for the first in four weeks. Cassandra would sleep in the same tent as Alex and the two men would sleep in a tent of their own.

Alex never knew of this, having collapsed into a sleeping bag and fallen unconscious before anyone could have told her. She slept without food in her belly and didn't even notice.

The night went on.


	5. The echoes scream

She felt the memory of how the licks of smoke sang from the core of oak and pine trees as they crackled back with tiger-like flames before she even had her eyes open. She heard cracks and splinters as the boards under where her body lay prone spat with oozing fire as the wood spat hazy smoke and flames that erupted before hissing still on the boards beside her.  
If she kept her eyes shut, the nightmare would go away.

The banging, the banging began, again. Every plank of oak shattered from its nailed chains as black tendrils of memory hands threw forth the sounds from her past. The noise screamed in her ears. Bang. Bang. Bang. Wood creaked and groaned deafeningly loud as hands reached out from every inch of the walls that she refused to see. It wouldn't stop, the desperate banging would never stop in her mind.

Alexis found herself standing and her eyes betrayed herself, staring ahead. Staring at the monster in the back of her mind. Both of her feet stood bare against the burning floorboards of her home, the fire ignored both her and all her essence as it embraced her in a hot, sticky touch. The banging continued as desperate black hands continued to try and tear their way inside despite their charred remains nonexistent to the plane of her memory.

If she kept still, she wouldn't have to see the horrid memory again.

The screaming and the voices they started. Started again just like the last time and the last time and the last time before that. Her breath caught in her throat as her lungs lurched forwards in their need to intake more oxygen as her heart stopped and shuddered as it dropped to the pit of her stomach. She felt fear rise to her throat as the sickening stench of burning flesh and copper invaded her senses as screams echoed around her ears like a wailing siren.  
'...Aren't you a pretty little thing…' a man's voice came into existence and then disappeared into fading laughter as a distinctly female scream came from nowhere. She knew that scream. She knew she knew that scream but Alex couldn't help herself from clutching her hands over her ears and crouch low in an attempt to let the memory forget her. Forget her for what she had done.

'Aren't you a pretty little thing.' The voice was in front of her and then it was everywhere repeating over and over and over again as laughter ran through her body, it became louder and louder as she felt her own scream bubble from her mouth. Hot tears bled from her eyes and erupted into flames as they hit the ground. The torture threatened to destroy her mind as the angry grasps of burnt corpses clutched desperately at her and howled and wailed in a indescribable agony. Alex screamed.

Then Alex was standing. In black nothingness a female figure half turned to face the tortured woman as she huddled in her fear, the figure was a shadow of black except for the piercing blue eyes that threatened to impale her in their iciness.

Silence.

'You did this. You killed us all. You murderer.' She felt cold iciness inside of her as her tears froze her eyes to the woman's form, the voice was calm and quiet like a force so angry that it couldn't even get itself to lash out and scream.

The face of the figure was suddenly in front of her and the stench of death perforated her senses. The words, cold and collected came from the figure.

'Look at what you've done, Raider.'

Alex opened her mouth to scream as her world shattered with spider web cracks as she dropped to the floor, all intentions of survival and animal instinct leaving her and the tidal wave of pure human fear crashed down inside her mind. She dropped to the side with her hands covering her face as desperate cries of apologies escaped from her.

She stayed like that for hours until the unshakable feeling of being watched shook her from her state of nothingness. She glanced up to where a large canine-like figure stared at her from the mist around her.

All she saw was green lights before her own torture awoke her.

________________________________________

Unlike her usual nightmares, Alex woke up quiet and standing. Her face felt like she had thrown herself into the sea and back as tears continued to roll down her face. The torture was fresh in her mind and she barely registered that she was nowhere near the campsite. She didn't even know how she came out here without the help of her crutches. Her voice let out a choked sob as her own emotions battered her heavy and hard. She stared ahead at the murmur of dark trees. Numbly she noticed a burning arrow and her bow wedged ridged in each of her hands and how a carcass of an animal she had never seen before lay at her feet, the wound it bared smouldering and sizzling. With a cold wash forming over in her mind Alex realised that while in her fear stricken mind she had reacted like a wild and rabid carnivore, the calm sense of survival leaving her and the rising head of violent fear gaining control. Her realisation hit her like a bullet in her chest as she felt the memories rush back with a full force and she stumbled backwards.

"Alex?" A voice broke her from her voice, calm, inquisitive. Solas. So very…normal.

She managed to move her head to the side to catch sight of the elf from the corner of her eye. She registered that the elf was quite a few steps behind her and didn't look like he was going to be approaching anytime soon.

She gulped as her voice managed to escape from her "S-Solas. What, what are you doing here?" She didn't even care as a choked sob escaped from her.

"I was on watch when you came out of your tent. You didn't even notice me. You were sleepwalking."

Alex let the elf see her smile in an attempt to guide the inquisitive man away from her.

"Was I?" She spoke softly.

"You were crying." Solas kept his voice the same, not gentle but observant. As if there were a notepad in front of him that would record every word said.

"W-was I?" She tried to keep her smile on her face.

"Alex, you are still crying." His voice never changed yet the elf might as well have been shouting at her as the smile dropped from her face as she aged dramatically in mere seconds and the dark shadowed look that passed her face caused the man's eye to twitch.

"…was I?" She barely murmured the words as whatever she had been holding dropped from her hands. Behind her, she barely noticed as flames erupted from behind her as whatever object she had held came into contact with the ground. She turned to fully face the other elf but struggled to raise her eyes to meet his, she still felt the hot salty tears drip off of her chin and onto the floor.

She coughed and tried to take a step forward, her body felt lethargic and heavy as the elf continued to stare at her.

Solas tilted his head slightly to the side "You were carrying a burning arrow in your sleep and speaking in a language I don't recognise. Why?" The elf didn't even seem to notice her emotional distress, instead, he merely rested against his staff.

She rubbed her eyes as the flames reached her eyes and dried up all the moisture on them even as it died down "I, I don't know. I-I'm going to head back to the campsite. It was just a nightmare Solas." She mumbled.

Solas somewhat nodded and let her stumble and trip her way back to the campsite.

By the time Alex returned to the campsite, the sun was already rising over the murky mass of green foliage with a surprising vigour. Birds started their early morning calls with chirps and chatter from hidden places among the many branches. With all the uproar of life, Alex was left irate, exhausted and mentally shaken. The nightmare hadn't happened for many numbers of months and for once she had believed that it had truly left her. With all the emotional struggle she had experienced the backlash had been obvious. Even as she lost herself in her thoughts the world around her rose against Alex's wish to go back to sleep and from a distance she could see her fellow companions rise from their tents awake and rejuvenated. Not even her uncontrollable fear of Cassandra could stop the angered growl from escaping her lips as her jealousy rose at how easily sleep came to them willingly.

She huffed as Solas brushed past her, the only sign of him ever being there was by how the wind whispered past her as the elf sauntered past her silently. Even now the camp was almost already packed up and both Varric and Solas were already on their horses, Varric fiddling with his crossbow while the latter seemed lost in thought. She heard Cassandra huff under exertion as the hauled her's and Alex's tent with one arm and her horse's heavy leather saddle in the other. Cameron, on the other hand, was desperately trying to calm her horse down after her tent, which had been incorrectly clipped to the seat by a somewhat hungover elf, crashed onto the ground causing the massive beast to read up on its hind legs in surprise. She let out a short huff as she dragged her feet behind her and towards the massive stallion.

Cassandra stopped nearby Alex "If you didn't want to take the tent down, you didn't have to go as far as to wander off into the forest." What could have been an attempt at humour was quickly shoved aside by the biting and curt tone that the seeker's voice held. What Alex heard was clearly an insult and accusation yet the younger woman was far too tired to care what the other woman thought.

In response, she curtly replied "okay. Noted."

She let the seeker past as she slowly hobbled towards her faithful steed who had stayed strapped up to the lone fence post for the entire night and stood happily grazing on the vibrant blades of grass and dandelions. Some small part of Alex was slightly chuffed with her increase in finesse on two legs, she then tripped of a small bump in the ground causing her to trip and land face first on her horse's side. She swore into the warm side of her gentle mare and the horse huffed almost in a reprimanding tone.  
Alex tried not to look at the amused faces, quickly reminding herself that one was a dwarf with a medieval bazooka, one was a giant tall bear lady with a sword and shield, another could jump feet through the air from a sitting position and take out multiple children sized dogs and another could hit things with his long staff, very hard.

"Alex, are you coming?" The patient tone of Cameron's voice knocked her out of her thoughts and she nodded in response as she clumsily started to straddle her steed who flicked her ears back as her rider poked an uncomfortable spot on her body.

Now on the horse, she looked back towards the other four and felt her ears turn pink as she glanced at their particularly amused looks.

It was going to be a long day.  
________________________________________

Throughout the entire journey, someone had stayed by the side of Alex as at one point the scavenger had fallen completely off of her horse and straight into a pit of mud as the woman lost consciousness. While the situation had been hilarious, her four 'friends' had had enough decency not to laugh. Despite this, Alex was left tired, muddy and in a foul mood. Her leather armour felt heavy, cold and clammy as it stuck to her small frame. Mud oozed into every cranny of her clothing and boots meaning that every time she moved she would squelch and the cold mud would make its way closer to her. Her brown hair was left in clumps of sticky messes and water trickled down her head and straight into her clothing. Her bow itched and rubbed against her back which made her already cold and wet skin feel raw as the wood grated along her shoulder blades.

Along with all the recent events, Alex felt angry and ashamed of herself and despite all efforts to hide her emotions, even Solas seemed to have noticed the rather livid energy that she was emitting from behind the group.

At one point throughout the journey, the elf had taken watch over Alex. They were a far distance from the rest of the group as the tired woman failed to find the effort to push her ride into a trot to catch up after the mud incident. Of which, she swore there was a slug stuck under her clothes regardless of how many times her protests to stop and check were brushed off.

The two rode in silence for a while, Alex too tired to care and Solas carrying a worryingly scientific look. After it became pain staking lay clear that the elf was studying her, she let out a frustrated sigh and through gritted teeth grunted at him in an effort for the elf to realise that he had been caught.

He at least had the decency to stop staring at her so intently.

"I will have to report your behaviour to the rest of the group." His voice broke the silence again, as obnoxiously smart arsed as always.

"Will you?" Alex replied with an almost airy tone, if not for the sarcasm that laced her voice.

"Alex, you walked miles out of the camp. Walked. Even after weeks of living with your injury, no one should be able to just walk like that, and during his or her sleep. In your sleep, you managed to pick up and shoot at a nug in your sleep with a burning arrow." Solas replied as he was picked up in his own terrifying curiosity. So that’s what the creature had been.

Alex gulped as something cold and hard struggled to go down her throat. And it wasn’t the slug that was most definitely crawling down her arm now.

He paused for a moment and then seemed to reply to words she had never voiced "Your past is your own. I will not tell them the details about the nightmare. It will not benefit us anyways." Silas rode off leaving the scavenger hyperventilating as she clutched her steed's saddle in a white buckle grip.

"What do you mean details!?" She called after him but they were now metres away.

________________________________________

The crossroads was a…busy place.

Alex had never been in contact with this many people before. Women, huddled in blankets as they fed children, kin and alike meat from a giant horned goat. They gathered around places, working their way through supplies in busied rabbles with hunting pouches, bread, coins and all alike trading. Similar men stood not far off, trading, talking and receiving. Then there were hoards of white-clothed women and some men who huddled around a large wooden cabin that held a huge grass-covered roof. Some tended to the ill, while others watched over people in prayer. More staff wielding people gathered near, some aged and weary, others new and clumsy. Regardless of where Alex was, there were people, lots of people.  
They had arrived not more than twenty minutes ago and Alex already felt overwhelmed by the number of people, and all of them wielded some form of weapon. The wild raised woman was so put off by the number of human bodies surrounding her she had quite animatedly offered to keep an eye on the horses that had been tied against a lone fence far away from the rabble of noisy people. Cameron and her group had walked off to deliver many refugee supplies and some especially 'found' blankets that one of the scouts for the inquisition had asked for.

While the stop at the crossroads was only a short trip, the real mission being to hire a horse master that Cameron had been trying to hire since before Alex arrived over four weeks ago, apparently horse masters were very important in this part of the world; so much so that watch towers had to be built for them. Still, the premise of a fully working society seemed daunting to her, the fact that there was a currency, that there were rules against hunting in areas, houses were built to last and even the fact that there where some form of toiletries seemed impossible for her to understand. In the streets people would wave at her in greetings, children would play with toys and not deadly weapons, pets were pets and not hunting animals. Alex glanced to the horses as that thought crossed her mind. Hers, a lovely dappled mare with a shiny coat and a long combed mane, a horse, instead of a form of food for one to eat.

The thought of society almost seemed possible. She quickly shook that thought away.

Cameron was right when she had said that the horse master's farmland was a lot quieter than the crossroads. At a max, she had seen only five farmers and that included the silver-haired woman out nearby the farmhouse. The landscape was rocky in the hinterlands but this for once seemed like a welcomed valley in a place where a rock was the size of a small mountain. The grass was vivid with movement and colour as grains of the sandy path gathered in between the blades of grass and weeds. Lovely oak fences helped the scavenger to hobble at the same speed as the others walked although she swore that they had slowed down just for her. Far to her right next to another of the inquisition camps was a natural river full of both fauna and flora, the water clear and slight stony grey in pallor. The rush of the waterfalls that decorated themselves around the small valley mixed in with the trees as air scuttled through their many branches and leaves, a symphony of white noise. The quiet chatter of birds followed as they darted from branch to branch and then straight up into the blue, endless ocean of sky.

Despite many of the smaller buildings left ransacked by the war, the great farmhouse stood proud and firm with the timber frames and deep wooden walls. It stood grand and firm, a contrast to the roundhouses that were dotted around the landscape and while quite clearly hand built, it held a subtle air of pride, the type of pride that was earnt through hard manual labour and time. To the right of her was a smaller garden full of herbs and blossoming fruits however on the left was a large area fenced off and inhabited by -she felt guilty thinking this- healthier looking horses than the steeds her and Cameron's companions rode.

When they walked inside they were met by a burly older man with darker skin and greying hair. He walked straight to Cameron and clasped her hand in his own in a greeting although he did spend a second to glance down at Alex's strange prosthetic. He smiled even though it was small compared to the Herald's large grin.

"My farmers have reported to me that there seem to be three new buildings scattered around the lands after they came back after our little problem seemed to vanish." He laughed as he spoke even though his facial expression didn't display much of a change from the grim frown.

Cameron's grin seemingly became even wider at the man's knowledge of the Inquisition's work.

"Yes, it seems so, horse master Dennet! Our agreement then?" She responded brightly.

"As I said, we will supply you with horses, proper horses from Ferelden, and anything fancy in case your more 'civilised' friends need something more." He waved her off and walked over to where a wooden desk and chair sat, sitting in the chair he moved scraps of saddles, tools and paper away until a rather official letter was unearthed from the depths of the men work. He moved towards the pen and inkwell.

Cameron, this time softer asked "What of you, Horse Master? Will you be joining us or are you staying?"

The older man huffed and rubbed his temples with an aged hand "You inquisition folk are going to get into a whole heap of trouble, and with all the events going on your base of operations is less than prepared for any force. Logically, it would seem that more would be done if I stayed here until or if you become a stronger force in this game that all those Orlesian bastards seem to be calling it. If you don't mind Herald, I wish to stay here until I know I can safely return to my family." He moved his head sideways as he continued to write on the letter.

Cameron nodded in understanding "I respect your decisions, and in some ways agree with you. With all this shit that's going on, your family is probably the best thing we all have at the moment. Well, unless you are Vivienne, at the moment this is like an early birthday present for her." The last part was quietly muttered under her breath and Alex swore she saw even Solas let out a huff of amusement which was discretely disguised as a cough.

Not soon after the last of the papers were signed and with a firm grip both the Herald and the horse master shook hands.

"Welcome to the inquisition, Horse-master."

________________________________________

It had been a few hours since their visit to Dennet's farmstead and the five had sat in quiet silence since then, the sun was still high in the sky however the air now held a firm grip of humidity and heat that was only found in the mountainous land when the sun began to set and the moon rose from its slumber. Even the birds had started to settle and the odd Furless rabbits had hidden away in their burrows. The ground was hit with hazy oranges and psychedelic purples and pinks as the bright orb snuck away with itself and the daylight, the clouds still held the warm summer colours in their light grasp as they turned and rolled slowly in the air.

The only sound that came from the area around the group was the rhythmic clopping of the hooves of their horses as they walked upon the muddy path. The trees still murmured around them however it was easy to drown out the sound of the wind and the trees out when the whole of Ferelden was covered in forest land. Other than the odd huff from the horses or a cough from one of the five companions it was a peaceful yet still awkward ride back to haven, to Alex anyways, she was still hands down terrified of almost everyone except for Cameron and perhaps Varric.

Speaking of which.

"Say Ghost, you never said what your home is like other than, you know, being slightly fucked up; any good things?" The dwarf spoke from his dapple brown pony.

Alex was knocked out of her thoughts at the question. she stuttered "Not really, there isn't much of anything anymore. Food and water are scarce in the deserts and the forests thunder every night which causes fires. The animals are rabid, including the humans and there are hundreds of dud bombs scattered around the world that never went off." She furrowed her brow in concentration trying to think of any positives from her 'home'.

The dwarf seemed to think for a moment as he rubbed his chin with his forefinger "what about family then, surely there must be someone who taught you to shoot a bow?"

Alex coughed sharply as the question knocked the sense out of her for a few moments and even then it took her a while to even process the question.

Before she could answer through the calm, level-headed voice of Cameron spoke up front the front "Varric, Alex is already in a new far away land, I don't think she needs to remember any loved ones right now."

Varric looked sheepishly at her "right, sorry. I'm having a hard time processing anywhere other than what we already have a map of, I forget that you aren't from Ferelden or Orlais, you can't just take a ride down to home."  
"It's all right Varric, you didn't mean anything by it." She nodded and smiled slightly until the harsh voice of the Seeker spoke up.

"She does know how to defend herself though, she must have learnt somewhere how to fight." Cassandra sat in front of her and even though she couldn't see her face Alex could hear the suspicion in her voice.

Alex frowned "I don't know how to fight. I know how to hunt, not how to fight, those wolves yesterday were hunting us, they didn't think how their lunges would hurt us or if they attacked a certain part of the body would cripple someone, they just hunted another animal. The same thing goes for me, back home there are no wars so no one needs to know how to fight, only to hunt, I know how to hunt, scavenge and strip any animal down to the bone in order to survive, I know how to my defend myself from predators, not how to fight a warrior."

"What about people?" Solas perked up as he briefly glanced in her direction before looking back ahead at the road.

Alex was silent for a moment "Home is a perfect example, that we aren't above nature, we still bleed, breathe, live, die, grow like any other animal. Just because we are sentient does that really mean we are above being animals? So yes, people hunt people back home, some even eat them as a daily diet. I can't face myself to eat anyone, it feels wrong to even kill my own kind when I know they are capable of just as much emotion as myself the only difference is that I can understand a person, I can't understand any other animal. There are a few societies, but they’re mostly hidden from most people as a lot of humans are…violent. There are Raiders, Scavengers, A few religious cults and then there are rumours of hidden villages. Though I doubt that.”  
With that thought in mind, the five settled back into comfy silence.

That was until a black blur sped across the road and straight at Alex. The wolf slammed straight into her leg and tore the lithe woman off of her already spooked horse. The beast was already upon her in seconds, it took her all her effort to keep the dripping maw of the canine from burying itself in her neck. The maddening green eyes bore into her as the black dots of pupils seemed to stare blankly at nothing even though the wolf's body seemed focused on her. As it lunged again at her neck in the last attempt she threw her wrist in between the wolf's mouth and cried out as razor sharp teeth tore straight into the flesh and down to the bone.

It seemed almost futile until a blast of bright heat and then flames erupted from the side of her and straight into the wolf. Alex watched as the wolf yelped and fell off her and onto its side, it struggled for a few seconds before the flames took hold and ate it alive.

Alex sat up and gaped at where the wolf's corpse should have been, instead there were black ash and the strong smell of burning meat and fur. Clumsily she stood up and backed away from the direction the flames had erupted from. Solas stood leaning against his staff as the tip of it glowed a bright yellow light as flames spewed forth from the ornate top.

She opened and closed her mouth unable to comprehend the situation. She heard Varric ask her if she was okay.

"What. What the fuck was that!?" She barely noticed her hands shaking as she pointed towards the layer of ash as the wind softly blew it away into nothingness.  
Solas seemed immune to her panic and replied stiffly "Magic."

Everything seemed to slow down as the pit in her stomach threatened to eat her away this second. Numbly she heard Cameron ask her something but she couldn't make out the words for her heart rushed to her ears and deafened her.  
She stumbled away from the elf and just ran.


	6. Fever dreams

Alex couldn't tell how long she had been running for, minutes, hours, it all seemed to blur into one monstrosity of dark foliage and muddy grass as her blood threatened to burst out into her organs and infect her beating heart as fear coagulated inside of her like a venomous bite. She'd forgotten how many times she had tripped over knitted vines, roots and her own mangled foot, all breathing exercises had been flung out of the metaphorical window and then burnt to a cinder as she scrabbled along varying sizes of trees and foliage. Her head swam in the endless depths of her fear as she blindly ran in the direction she fell too.

The sudden loss of the muddy ground underneath her foot sent her tumbling into a steep rock filled muddy overhand. The sharp twang as her head smacked against one of the many large rocks that had been caught up in the mudslide along with her. Oozing cold mud slid into every seam of her clothing and threatened to drown her as she landed head first into the weeping pits of mud, rock and dead plants. All of her muscles ached as she lay face first in the cold mud, she couldn't process anything as her senses were overstimulated with pain and goop. She groaned partly in frustration and partly in the harsh twang of pain coming from, what she thought, everywhere.

Eventually, she gained the morale to haul herself unsteadily up to her feet, of which the mud came up to her ankle currently but she could feel herself sinking, even more so on her right leg due to the prosthetic. It was cold and seeped into every nook of her body and torn clothes; she dumbly noted that during the fall she had badly ripped her clothing, her breeches all but useless and her leather and cloth armour was badly scraped and slightly torn at the edges. She managed to glance around her surroundings in order to find her bow despite herself slowly sinking into the mud pit. She was in a swamp area, water-clogged grass bled into knee to waist high lakes which were murky from loose mud, rocks and algae. The trees surrounding her were knotted, dark and she could see the shine as the rotting foliage was upturned from under its own bark by water. Their roots buried themselves into the ground in a desperate attempt at staying rooted in place however it was obvious that barely any of the younger trees were reaching the precious nutrients. She could barely see the moon in the densely grown swamp and while any chance she could usually get to be in the shadows was a welcomed one, the lack of moonlight put her on edge. Even when she had lived in the forests she had been able to see the moon, as bright and as clean as many, many years ago. If she had ever been missing the ever omnipotent ball of rock, she had merely had to climb one of the small mountain-sized buttress-esque trees and there it was. But now, the dark grey, dying leaves of these merely ten-foot trees blocked out all light, all noise and all existence of life. She could hear the sound of her own breathing but nothing more. Silence in the wild was almost nonexistent always a cricket or frog under a leaf, the scamper as a rodent went past the floor bushes, the sound of distant owls, the warning hiss of a snake as you passed too close, wind. There was nothing, this swamp was dead, to everything.

There was a shack, or what was left of it anyways.

The wood was rotten and ripe with rain, moss had made its way up to what used to be the corner of the log cabin. Spiders nests had made their ways into the many natural cracks of the wood and the rain on the sticky strings of the web turned the cabin frozen, cold, and unwelcoming. Part of the roof had collapsed in on itself in what looked like had been a fire, the rafters dripping with oozing, wet, old ash. The door had remained intact, however, there was almost no wall next to it. The thick glass had been shattered and she faintly saw flakes of deep red where the shards weakly hung. She felt her throat tighten. The blood, the shattered glass and the surprisingly alive foliage in the cabin put her on edge. She had the wrenching vision of some human-shaped corpse laying there, she had seen it too much before; the people who lived in the forests died on the ground they stood in order to keep life in the forests and Alex had seen the signs.  
She could either die slowly in cold, wet mud, or she could go in the dilapidated cabin. She faintly saw the flash of lightning in the difference and quickly, she had made her decision. She moved towards the cabin with a struggling pace as her injuries, fatigue and her annoyingly non-hydrodynamic leg pulling her down. She seemed to drag her right foot with her as it failed to cut through the thick mud. Alex groaned as she made her way to the cracked steps of the cabin and managed to shove open the lodged door. Her shoulders ached from the now heavy metal parts that seemed to weigh even more by the second she stood, her calf ached from trying to stay upright and webbed footed and her head randomly swam with sharp knifing flashes of pain. She glanced around.  
Alex was right.

She glanced at the skeletal remains that lay on the floorboards, it wasn't as bad as she had thought. The man had clearly died from an infection from cutting his hand on the shattered glass window, a thin long pin with black scale sticking through where his hand would have been. He was wearing old trousers and, Alex furrowed her brow, an army jacket around his waist.

She gulped and hobbled over to the skeleton at a pace she hadn't thought possible for her.

Dropping to her knees she shakily patted down the rib cage as she failed to comprehend what was happening around her from the quickly sinking weights in her gut. This man, this person, was from earth and had died, decades ago. No one held anything other than an old mucky white, no flesh or blood. This Echo was a soldier, not only had he watched his own world be destroyed in the present, but had been thrown into a completely different world and died in one of the most painful ways imaginable, with no one to remember him. She saw the flaky, incredibly readable note by his foot and suddenly Alex felt a nauseous wave of sadness over her. The first person to find him, couldn't even read his note, his own goodbye was ignored.  
Rocking back onto her haunches and then lowering herself to the ground she curled her legs up to her chin and stared glumly at the man that slept before her. Echoes were rarely found back on earth and even then, they were usually desecrated for their higher quality tools and clothes; Alex had never the urge to just defile a sleeping Echo unless she truly needed it, even then she felt the need to wash until she was clean. These people, these Echoes had everything taken from them and yet, everything they had ever done was on pure display for what was left of the human race, the rats. The Vermin.

Alex found herself hauling the skeleton to a fire pit she had found in the far corner of the roofed part of the cabin, deciding it was best to finally give the man a burial that was an honoured practice at the time of his death. She carried bones to and from the spot where he had been, had stacked them feet first and placed his skull on top. His now useless clothes had been folded behind him, intended for tinder as well as 'spiritual' purposes. She froze when she saw a black object peeking out from the mans' trousers. A gun. Guns were still used on earth and Alex had used them before, but she hated them. They were often loud and unnecessarily violent, being from the forest, the silence was the most important thing to the scavenger and the first time she had ever shot a gun, she had sworn to never even hold one again. She stared at the bulky handgun. Bullets all but gone other than broken casings and lead rattling around. Even as the fire roared and his bones turned blackened with ash, she stared at the weapon.  
In one quick motion, she had torn the wood from the handle, bashed the metal apart, and had thrown it into the fire pit. This world was not old enough to be destroyed just yet. She watched it all burn.

An hour later she was raiding through what was left of the supplies, while she didn't like stealing from a dead man, survival was her main objective. She had found a still sharp, if slightly rusty, combat knife, a pack full of metal strips and tools, a tent and old sleeping bag and a lot of rotten food. She struggled to stay upright as she walked over to a surprisingly still intact chest, her injuries were getting to her but if she didn't find some form of food now she was going to go crazy.

She opened the chest slightly, frowned and then opened it fully. Inside was a surprisingly almost usable set of armour. Almost, the torso had been destroyed and was torn apart and burnt. Covered in ash and one of the guards was almost nonexistent. She picked up the helmet of the set and blinked wildly, the metal helm was completely sealed from the front and wrapped around in a full helmet, the mouth and nose were covered in a guard and three thick prongs protruded from the mouth guard to cover the nose bridge and the sides of the head. Limply connected to it was a leather hood that clipped to the prongs of the back of the helm which folded neatly over each other in a scale like fashion. The hood was meant to cover the shoulders, the right of which had a thick covering of what seemed to be a thick, dusty brown canines fur. Underneath the hood was a warmer layer of leather that would if she were to put it on, reach her hips where four straps could possibly be tightened to sit in the middle of her waist if she punched a hole in the straps. There was also a thin layer of cloth underneath the two layers of leather on the left shoulder, trying to compensate in warmth from the fur on the right shoulder. Alex then picked up the gauntlets and almost let out a laugh at her luck, the fore and middle finger of the more or less completely armoured forearm length gauntlets were missing; this was an archers garment! Thick fur had lined the insides of the glove, flattened over time from use, but still warm nether the less. Carefully she picked up the only useful guard. The front had five thick layers of metal that scaled over each other, the top two pinned together so the large top spike would bend when the user crouched. The back, however, was almost entirely leather, only thick bands on each of the first four plates wrapped around. This meant that the wearer had full use of their agility, this truly was an archers' set of armour.

Alex glanced down at her worthless armour and sighed. She quietly sent an apology and a Thank You to the man she had found recently.

Before she had even thought of putting the armour on she had angrily thrown her prosthetic leg after falling into a hole in one of the floorboards. Realising what she had done, she had stared at where it lay snapped on the ground. About an hour later, she had the crudest metal prosthetic ever built from the bag she had found, the man obviously having been educated as a mechanic of some form. Using the base of her wooden one, she had encased it in a thick metal sheet using the still hot embers of the fire, using many other strips of metal she had then made what looked like a bad skeleton of a skyscraper building that thinned down to where she had joined a hinge to another thicker sheet of metal to form a flat foot. In order to keep the foot straight and hold friction, two thick springs held the foot in place and would bend if she leant forwards or backwards.

Never the less, she was proud of herself, even as she tried to not stare guiltily at the remains of her wooden one.

Everything was too big apart from the metal parts, but by whatever being there was, it was warm. Alex stood in an off room of the cabin in what was left of a mirror. She didn't quite know what to think of herself. Deep green eyes hung in empty, gaunt sockets, unnecessarily wide with their usual deer in the headlights look. Her face had returned to its gaunt state, pale skin even sickly looking under the current, lack of, lighting. Messy light brown hair hung down to her chin in a mop of wild brown locks of hair. Her fringe had disobeyed her again and stuck out over her eyes and over her hair. Her nose still looked off since the last time she set it and her lips were bust and torn from many a time. Alex was nothing incredibly special, yes her frame was lithe and made for stealth and hunting, but she had not the desirables that many of the finer woman would have. Her body was built only to survive, not to entertain and Alex was fine with that.

As Alex put the helmet onto her head, she finally felt some form of protection in the shadows. A hood and a full helmet, was a thief's, assassin's, scouts or any stealth-based persons' dream when in a fight. She still groaned however when her stomach let out a pang in a plead for food. Sighing, she felt the boot and metal foot thud silently on the floor as she left the cabin, pack and bow in hand with her arrows slung over her back. Her foot felt almost normal, almost.

She still fell down the three steps leading up to the cabin on the way out.

________________________________________  
Cameron and her team had been searching for hours for the young woman. Cassandra had many a time suggested to give up on the search but it didn't settle right with the Herald to leave another in dangerous woods with a disability, no knowledge of the wildlife and no form of support. Not only that but she was pretty sure Alex wasn't much older than what was considered the typical adult, Cameron while still considered young compared to that of perhaps Cullen or Solas, was still very much older than both Sera and Alex.

Varric had wandered further out in order to try and find Alex, him being the only other scout…sort of. With his crossbow in hand, the dwarf had easily hidden himself into the foliage near the ground and had wandered off south last she had seen. Cameron meanwhile had been climbing the taller trees to find any light source astray from a path or rustle in the trees. Cassandra while mistrusting in the young girl, was not one to slacken and still thunderously went through the trees to try and help, even if she didn't stray far from the group playing guard. Solas meanwhile had been deep in thought, Cameron could have told him to help too but while Solas was a pretty hard elf to understand and relate to, she could clearly see some well-hidden guilt and curiosity. She couldn't blame him, she would have felt the same if she were the one to terrify a person who had never seen magic before in their entire life.

"Herald, maybe she has fled further than we had expected, she was a quick learning how to walk again," Cassandra spoke up to her as the elf perched on a particularly strong branch of a tree. She couldn't mistake the slightly bitter tone but she did have a point, Alex, while nowhere near as graceful as she might have once been, had been learning quickly how to utilise herself around. She had sworn she'd seen a run once, no matter if she had fallen flat on her face a few seconds later.

Suddenly Cameron saw a bright light from one far end of the forest, a boggy dead swamp area from what she could tell from the trees. It might have been a wild guess but her gut told her that this was Alex.

"There! In the distance, a light!" Cameron pointed towards it even if the others could not see, glanced at it a few times to secure the location and grabbed the thick trunk of the tree she was sat on in order to slide down the smooth bark of the aspen tree. Varric broke back into the clearing and glanced at her with Bianca lowered in his hands. Solas picked himself up off a tree he had been leaning against and drew his staff out from his back. By the time Cameron was on the forest floor Cassandra was standing at attention, she really needed to try and see if she could time the Seeker.

"What did You see Herald?" Solas asked as he walked up to the rest of the group, of which were already following her.

"A light, some form of fire, I think it might be Alex." She muttered as she too drew her weapons.

"And if it's not?" Varric asked some form of urgency in his tone.

"If it's not, then we have a corpse to find and a forest fire to sort out. She doesn't know these woods, any magic or magic users, any of the wildlife and she doesn't know where the nearest civilisation is."

Varric nodded in acceptance.  
________________________________________  
The hunt was on.

Never in her many weeks of being here had Alex felt this at home, civilisation, plenty of food, clean water and a bed were alien to her. People that accepted her as a companion were foreign to her language. Magic wielders, elves, and horned men were fairy tails for children. Here in the forest, now away from the bog, it was alive. Trees taller than she had ever seen reached into the heavens and dared the thunderstorm to strike them down. Their leaves so impossibly high their shadows barely touched the floor. Trunks with bicep sized veins that seemed to bulge with the great lifeblood of sap.

Nocturnal mammals, insects, reptiles and amphibians sang in an unfindable chorus, flashes of a snake in the burrows of roots, the shadows of insects jumping from leaf to leaf and the rustle and padding of rodents under the foot of the shrubs. Even in the ever approaching darkness of the night, the light from the rain danced in this evergreen hillside forest. While nothing compared to that of a rainforest the trees matte lacking of a shiny water-resistant waxy cuticle, bark knotted and aged instead of a few weeks old and the grass lacked vibrancy the rainforests had. The wind was bitter in her eyes, the helmet blocking most of it, and she felt the chill as it licked into the seams of her outfit. Her two fingers that held the strings of her bow drawn tight tingled from the cold and reddened at the tips. Frost glittered in icy spots where the bogland and the forest met, they stuck to the blades of grass and leaves like frozen glue.  
She'd been following one of the hairless Lagomorpha's for around half an hour, for such large ears the creature was hardly bright enough to realise the stumbling, ungraceful hunter barely keeping balance in the shrubbery. It stopped for a bit and she froze, surely it must have noticed her by now, instead, it sat on its haunches and with its front hand, it cleaned its pointed snout, brushing away dirt from its snout and small eyes. This was her chance.  
Drawing the bow tighter, she put her cheek to the fletching of the arrow, the nock nestled icon her hand. Pulling the bow tight was surprisingly hard, she'd let herself go slightly and now there was a light exhaustion from the bow being drawn. She held her breath as she levelled the arrowhead to the creature. Time seemed to slow down on her as spikes of anxiety coursed through her system. She'd only miss if she thought about it, thought about how she hadn't hunted in over a month, how she was rusty and disabled. Alex shook her head and let the arrow fly.

It landed with a heavy thunk as it pierced the hairless creature through the eye and the momentum flung the smaller creature to the ground. Dead, instantly. She let out a shaky breath and stumbled out of the bushes. She fell slightly as she struggled to gain her footing when standing up. Rushing to the dead creature she roamed her hands across its body and let out a shaky laugh as she came around to the sense that she'd successfully hunted something since her accident. Dropping her bow she fell onto her knees and put both hands onto the body of the creature. Her hands shook as tears she hadn't shed in ages came to the surface, Alex didn't understand why she was crying but let them loose anyways. She sat on her knees as she cried in silence with shuddering breaths.

There was a rustle in the trees. Louder than the rest.

She froze in place, hands still on the slowly going cold creature. The rustling came again and she swore she heard the thud of something's footstep. Her hand slowly went to her bow which laid next to her as her other raised to bring an arrow nestled in her makeshift quiver, the one in her preys buried too deep.

The footsteps became closer and as she knocked an arrow into her bow her heart sped up.

Something entered the clearing she was in and in record time had turned, drawn her bow fully back and let go.

The arrow hit something with a thunk.

________________________________________  
Cameron had barely registered the arrow buried in the seekers' shield which would have been through her eye socket if not for Cassandra being slightly in front of her. Even as she lowered her shield she continued to stare ahead. Cameron wasn't green to danger, but for even a seasoned soldier, almost dying had an effect, no matter how sudden. Her heart rate seemed to beat so fast she felt slow and her body felt cold and clammy with sweat.  
Cameron noticed the figure staring at her, really staring at her, the bow still pointed straight at her but the drawing arm hung limply. The two locked eyes with each other hers shocked and wide, her shooters wild, animalistic, scared. The figure stood with great effort and she heard a metalling creaking when she stood.

"Alex?" Varric asked before Cameron, the dwarf probably didn't even know he said it out loud.

Cassandra acted when hollow green eyes glanced at the dwarf.

"Oh, this is it!" She bellowed with a huff and had her sword drawn and her body marching to the younger girl before Cameron had a chance to stop her.

The bellowing seeker was too much for Alex to handle, she shook back and forth between the group, her hands twitching slightly, Cameron knew a cornered animal when she saw one. Alex in a blinding motion had drawn an arrow, struck the arrowhead against a rock and had the flaming tip a mere metre away from the seekers head, the bow half drawn. Any further away and Cassandra could have disarmed the alarmed archer, but now any attempt would get both of them dead with the two a metre apart from each other.

"Don't come any closer! This is mine!" The scavenger snarled at the group, all sense of fear gone.

Instinctually both Varric and herself moved forwards only to freeze when Alex tightened her grip on the drawstring.

"Alex! Let Cassandra go, put down your bow." Cameron tried to sound as commanding as she could, even with her heart beating faster than a frantic horse. The archer only glanced towards her, trained indeed, any new archer would have moved the bow and easily have been disarmed. Despite the girls' obvious cowardice, the archer seemed to be effectively staring down the entire group at the moment. Varric seemed to be struggling with deciding to shoot and Solas, Solas still looked quite neutral on the subject. Shock horror.

"No! You aren't allowed it, it's my food, I need it!" Cameron didn't know the girl could sound so menacing, even when she slipped into her native tongue, the accent similar to that of Cassandra but different.  
"That's the language she was speaking in when I found her Herald"Solas spoke up from behind her.

"Seeker, you know what she's saying?" Varric seemed to whisper, despite there being no need.

"Varric, why would I know what she's saying. The girl is completely deranged. The words probably don't even mean anything!"Cassandra snapped back.

"No, it's obviously a language, the words are too precise and-" Solas was cut off.

"Not the time you three!" Cameron snapped as she edged her way to the hysteric female. Slowly the herald her weapons and raised her arms up even when Alex fully drew the bow.

Cameron knew that she wouldn't be able to keep the bow drawn for that long before her arms started to shake unless she got Alex calmed down, there was going to be a rather dead Cassandra.

"No! Get away! This is my food, I caught it!" Alex kept switching between languages, too deranged to realise it probably.

"Alex, calm down, shhh. I'm unarmed. I'm not going to take your food. Cassandra, sheathe Your sword." Alex turned her attention to the Seeker, now little more than a metre from the two. Cassandra shot her a seething glare but did so anyways.  
Alex shuffled between the two, keeping the bow trained on Cassandra. She now had started to mutter completely in the odd language and with the helmet, she was wearing, all Cameron could see were hollow, crazed eyes.

"Alex, do you recognise me? Cameron? I'm your friend remember, you slept in my cabin?" Cameron continued to step forwards, hands up in the air in a placating gesture.

The bow moved slightly to the left and in a few seconds, Cassandra with her shield had knocked the bow upwards sending the arrow flying and Cameron had tackled Alex to the ground to stop the younger girl from being impaled from her own arrow when it came back down. The arrow hit the ground from where the scavenger had stood, setting the ground alight.

Alex didn't even struggle in the elf's arms, she just seemed to collapse and close her eyes. Slowing her own breath she could hear her friends ragged ones below her. Wheezing and wet. Her skin felt cold and clammy and her eyes couldn't seem to focus on much.

"Solas come here, I need you to check her out."Cameron continued to sit on top of the girl, holding her wrists against the forest floor.

Solas padded over, Cameron saw the staff before she saw the fellow elf. He kneeled down and continued to pry the helmet off of the girl when the helmet came off Cameron could clearly see the sickness in the girl. His skin was pale and drenched with cold sweat despite her body radiating a horribly warm heat. Her bright green eyes seemed sunken and tired and seemed to lack any focus on anything around her.

"She has some form of flu. She probably got it after…after she ran away. Herald, she's incredibly warm. She needs medical attention-"Cassandra barged Solas away and had her sword out at the girls' neck ready to slice her open in seconds.

"To the Maker with that! Herald, she's completely insane, a danger to us all and-" Cameron had pushed the Seeker away and stood over Alex as the scavenger continued to stare blankly at nothing.

"Seeker Pentaghast! Stop this at once! She's clearly not in her right mind!"Cameron ordered all of this was getting too extreme.

"Herald, she's not trustworthy enough-"

"Creators above! Who are we to judge a person from their mental state! From day one you two have been at each other necks, passive or not! We have elves, we have Orlesians, we have a Qunari who openly states he is a spy and yet you treat a disabled like they're the new Leliana, or gods forbid the one who blew up the conclave! From now on, this feud between both of you will end. Neither of you are children, are you!? Then don't act like children." Cameron yelled at Cassandra, her being the only one lucid enough of the two.

Cameron turned to help Alex back into the camp. She swore she felt Cassandra burn her with her eyes.

________________________________________  
Alex had woken up about an hour ago and since then had been incapable of retaining any food or drink. They had placed her in Cameron's tent, more covered than most. Even if there wasn't enough room for the two of them, Solas had insisted as to keep her from worsening. Even as she lay on top of a sleeping pack everything still felt too warm and too cold at the same time. Her mind was feverish and she could barely understand a word that anyone had said to her.  
That wasn't the problem, however. She glared at the bow which had been taken from her. She had almost shot someone she, somewhat, considered a friend. She'd been so sick she hadn't even noticed it and by then she had almost done something drastic. Alex shuddered as a wave of sickness caused her stomach to roll as she made an effort not to dry heave on the sleeping pack.

"What language were you speaking there?" Cameron spoke up from behind her, sitting as far back as possible to give the sick girl room.

Alex dumbly noticed the question a few moments later and opened her mouth with a gasping shudder "It's…it's called German, it's my somewhat..native language." She replied, hating that she couldn't finish the sentence in one breath.

"Oh? What is this…Jerr-mann"Cameron piped up.

Alex sighed as her muscles spasmed in pain "In the past, a long time ago, there was a war. And. My uh ancestors were from a country called Germany. Germany were against a lot of countries in the world. We lost and a lot of us fled to a place called America, or the USA. My family stayed there but we all kept a little of the language, even my-even my parents still kept the language. Basic history is all that's left from a war over a hundred years old."

"Oh, was that where you were originally, A…Ame-rriicaah…or you-ess-ayy...?" Cameron was trying desperately to pronounce the words correctly. Alex nodded in reply.

They sat in silence for a bit before Cameron spoke up again "So, your parents…are they?"

Alex sighed again "can we not, please?" Cameron mumbled an apology before the silence began.

"No, they're not alive. I made a mistake and they paid the price for it." This time the shuddering breath was not from the infection.

Cameron nodded somewhat "I understand. I lost my mother when I was eight to a bear. It's hard, I understand." She moved to wipe the sweat that Alex couldn't find the energy to wipe off herself.  
"Then, can we not..?"

"Very well. The past can't stay buried, but forcing it isn't the answer." Cameron sat down again after reaching over to offer her water from a separate canteen which Alex refused. She wouldn't be able to retain the drink anyways. Cameron shot her a glare and reluctantly Alex took the offer.

"Where did you get the outfit from. It's not a mass produced set, at least I don't think so. I'm not as familiar with human culture as I'd like to be." The Herald started again taking a drink from her own flask. Alex doubted it was water.  
"I found it in a cabin on a corpse. He'd died from an infection. He…he was from home. He was a …inventor..of sorts and had lots of metal I used to make a new foot. I broke the wooden one, sorry about that." Alex felt waves of sickness return to her and she suddenly regretted taking that water.

"You mean, your home, as in-!? There's more of you!?" The elf's tone went almost an octave higher in her shock.

"Oh thanks, I'm glad you like there being more of me" Alex returned with a dry glare to which Cameron nudged her with her foot slightly.

"You know I didn't mean it like that!" The elf mock glared at her and Alex let out a short laugh before coughing roughly when her stomach threatened to throw itself up.

They sat in comfortable silence. Alex could hear the crackle of the wood as it bathed in the hot flames of the makeshift fire pit. She could hear Cassandra and Varric conversing in a sort of civilised manner. The sound as Solas turned a page in a book he'd just started again came from the next tent and the thud of hoofs on solid grass as the horses moved around behind the tent.

"What was it like…seeing one of your own?" Cameron looked down at her now empty flask as she refused to look at the scavenger.

Alex gulped in breaths as dizziness left her again "He was an Echo. Old. I wouldn't know him, he wasn't a raider or clan member at least. They usually die with some form of trap inside or near them in order to sacrifice themselves either for their god or because they just can. He probably made the armour, but he didn't have resistance for an infection his body had never faced before. He left a note, I couldn't read it though. So I just burnt his bones to ash, a practice at the time of his death."  
"So What is a raider and a clan? I mean, I have my clan, but I don't think you mean in that sense." The Herald frowned slightly.

Alex shook her head "No, no, not in that sense. The easiest to deal with are bandits, they're small groups of people, usually cowards, they tend to just steal food or tools: annoying though. Desert Raiders are large groups of people who claim areas of land as their territory. They aren't all related, they catch women and…well..doesn't mean there aren't women in there, they tend to be more highly respected, sometimes. They're very violent, hooked up on drugs and moonshine, they find enjoyment from killing 'lesser' humans, despite the fact that they aren't all that bright. Clans, however, are religious cults that follow forgotten gods, they don't have much information on these religions so they just, make up rules as they go along. They capture people, sacrifice them and then eat them. They're more hidden but I'd prefer to be chased by Desert Raiders than a clan. They're…disturbing."

"You said about how you came from the forests of Your land? Are there…Raiders there?" Alex could see the apt interest in the elf's eyes now.

Alex nodded "yeah, forest raiders. They tend to be more religious than desert raiders, though most don't follow old religions, the forest itself. They die on the ground, kill on the ground, anything to provide nutrients to the forest. They're usually recluse and they stay high up in tree houses, the forest floor floods a lot. Every single person there is related and they're all loyal to each other, no unnecessary killing like in the desert. That doesn't make them any better though. Desert Raiders just kill, Forest Raiders though are renowned for torturing outsiders for days. Trees are stained red, permanently to give iron to the trees, green saplings grow with red leaves and bones in their bark, skulls embedded into the trees and arms crushed under roots. Like all groups of people though, some aren't that bad, but, there are equally as many that are so much worse."

"You sound like you speak from experience…Alex, what are you hiding...Alex?" Cameron sighed when she turned to see the girl completely passed out in a cold fever, her face twitching slightly in her dreams. She looked very sick and Cameron was surprised that she had retained consciousness for that long.

Cameron sneezed loudly and blinked widely in surprised.

She groaned.

"Aw, shit."

She sneezed again.


	7. Red raw, raw red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring mad Cassandra, or is she?
> 
> Warning: This is arguably an M rated chapter due to gore. If you do not like gore or vomit, you can skip this chapter but this is a serious plot point.

Cassandra sighed a deep, long sigh. A sigh filled with a desperate, clamouring need for a break from its owners' insanity filled existence. She held her sword limply in her right while her shield was hanging from its owner's other hand. She heard Varric's roaring laughter in the distance. She deadpanned.

They were a mere night away from Haven and yet they had found themselves in the midst of a bog of sorts, ground muddy with frost and dirt, water murky and covered in floating foliage and other plant life that she could not begin to understand for she was not a botanist. Trees were warm dark browns and silvers, leaves dark green and saturated. Cassandra could see the mountains.

She growled and tried desperately to ignore the small squeak from the smaller human next to her.

They had been walking along a rather suspicious wooden pathway that had been built years before the bog water had risen. The wood riddled with rot and moss had at first put everyone off walking in it but after a few tests, it had proven to be more than stable. They had walked along this pathway for more than half an hour, in trust of its strength.

That was until the herald had been swallowed by the water.

Cameron, oblivious to the underwater sinkhole, had stepped a few centimetres less than herself and simply, disappeared. Underwater. In a bog. It would have made the Seeker laugh if she had seen it. Instead, she heard the sound of The Herald of Andraste scream like a young child and throw herself out of the water and run straight onto Solas which caused the poor elf to fall straight into the wooden planks with a thud, a dripping Cameron huddled on top of his back.

"Herald." She ground out. She was sure her eye should not have been twitching like it was and it twitched, even more, when the supposed Herald of Andraste herself stay huddled on top of the poor apostate.

"Cassandra? Please remove the Herald from my back. Her guards are digging into my back." Solas murmured into the muddy floor, his clothes soaked wet and dripping with slimy mud. She could even hear the subtle frustration seeping out of the normally stoic elf.

"I was not aware that you were afraid of water Herald." The Seeker chastised. Her face did not show it but she was somewhat amused by the situation.  
Indignantly Cameron yelped "I'm not afraid! I just can't swim!" The flu had almost vanished from her after a few weeks helping around Ferelden, the first week was the worst and became even more horrid as Varric had caught it, him having spent too long in the tent nearby.

"Well, when we get back to Haven Lady Herald, I'll be sure to request swimming lessons for you. After all, if we are to help in the coasts, you are going to have to swim at some point, yes? Or should I let you clamber onto Solas's back once more?" She shouldn't have teased the elf so, she knew this. The expression on her face though was most certainly worth it, however.

Cameron looked nervous for a brief second before she realised she was still on her apostate friend.

"Solas! Oh, I'm so sorry I…ah." Her voice faded away as she moved to help the man up. His face was covered in mud, it had sunk into his ears as well. Slowly he removed the largest parts of the mud and smiled, if slightly tight at her.  
"No matter Herald." He gave no further explanation as he walked ahead leaving a bright eared Cameron behind him.

________________________________________  
Cassandra found that the scavenger, Alex, wasn't so much a mystery as more a very well crafted mask. It seemed that for every action that Cassandra found amendable, the girl would then proceed to disgust her. One time, before the whole 'shooting-the-Herald-in-blind-panic', she had caught a rather large amount of small nugs for the group and any hungry refugees the only problem was that she had also caught an abundance of insects, and then ate them. Instead of the nug. She had an odd relationship with fire, she could build fire pits faster than Cameron though avoided it like the blight when she was not using it for practical uses though it seemed she didn't even notice this action of hers. And while a quickly set up fire was a welcome, it annoyed the seeker greatly when the girl refused to keep herself warm and they couldn't provide an explanation as to why.

Usually quiet and drawn close to her person, the girl seemed to melt away in situations, her flight or fight response was less fight and almost purely flight. But sometimes, sometimes when something pushed the girl too far, her eyes seemed to sharpen and the owlish look she almost constantly wore vanished. Her lips would purse and sometimes pull back like a snarling dog, her mouth too small for her teeth would make her canines stand out. Her fist would not clench, but jerk or twitch, hands searching for something Cassandra could not entirely figure out, similar to when Leliana was stressed or frustrated. It was not a blade however, the gesture was more like a flicking of her thumb and her hand would close entirely.

Then there was the matter of her remaining foot. She had only seen it a few times as the girl mostly wore her boot, but once when the girls in the group, herself, Cameron, Alex and some of the scouts, she had seen it. Her foot melded themselves to whatever surface they were on, none of the usual tension of muscles to keep a person straight, no her foot completely relaxed and bent on the surface, toes as well. Even Cameron had made a comment about how she would have been an excellent climber.  
Amputation was incredibly common and prosthetics had existed for years, but the girls' talent for recycling old parts was apparent when she had somehow created an entire foot after running away. The metal was of incredible quality and there were no hammer marks except for a pattern of minuscule scratches. The bolts and springs must have been made by one of the most talented blacksmith to ever exist, completely symmetrical and covered in little grooves for them to screw into. She couldn't detect any magic in the metal, anything that had been tampered with magic left some form of residue for a while, but the entire quality of the parts she had found was incredible. The armour she had found suited her, if not a bit ragged and way too big on the girls' small frame. Speaking of frames, she had obviously benefitted from the food and water they were giving her when they had found her she been nothing more than a corpse with a beating heart.

________________________________________

Cassandra, the Herald, The Iron Bull and Vivienne had been patrolling the area of haven after a report of a supposed rift nearby. The area was sick with a bitter chill and the only thing that seemed to be surviving were the huge pine trees that reached green to the breach above them, snow clinging to their very form. Even the elfroot had refused to grow in this area, the snow seemingly too deep for seeds to take root. The mountain was the only other monument in sight and intimidating it was, it stood high with a jagged peak, snow covered the mass of rock and dirt.

At the first sight of blood she drew her blade, Cameron froze behind her and she heard the draw of Bull's cleaver and Vivienne's magic crackle into life. The silence became unnerving, the wind was no reprieve either. Strong enough to raise the red drenched clumps into its grasp and whisk it away. They turned to follow the trail, Iron Bull stood behind Vivienne to protect the mage and Cameron next to Cassandra's right where she held no shield.

And blood there was. It was streaked everywhere, splatters, streaks, pools of it everywhere. Fresh enough so that when she stood accidentally in some, it squelched and her foot returned, heavy with the sticky liquid. She heard Vivienne make an unimpressed noise from behind her.

She heard it then, the crackle, the backwards noises, the sick thrum of magic. A rift was there, but it was, off. The magic was twisted yes, but it sounded weak, weaker than other rifts but not in the sense of connection, more than the rift was reaching for something too far away, so powerful that it reached to pull out the impossible. And it was red, like the blood that now was dripping from the rift.

Drip, drip, drip.

Blood was dripping from the rift, correction, pouring. Cassandra briefly lost her grip on her sword.

And it was silent. Things seemed to just stop as all she heard was her breathing and her heart thudding, hard.

Things erupted from it and she was moving already.

All she could hear was the drip, drip, drip of the blood.

Drip, drip, drip.

Demons were everywhere, the first wave consisting of wraiths, terrors, shades and a greater shade, they were wet with red but it didn't matter, Cassandra just fought, parried and prayed to The Maker. Vivienne took down the wraiths blasting ice shards filled with Magicka while Iron bull defended her from the two shades that had decided to gang up on them. She saw Cameron guide the two terrors that had decided to jump towards her at the same time, flipping around when they appeared just slightly behind her she sliced straight through the firsts knees and as it fell she jumped onto its shoulders using a knife to its throat for leverage to flip and slice the second in the head. Cassandra herself charged at one of the shades knocking it over before ending it with her shield to its neck before she chained the greater shade and pulled its body towards her. At a startling speed, it came forth, face sliced in two from her sword.

The next wave came and a pride demon came out along with shades. The great beasts chuckles shook snow from its lodgings and made leaves shake from its deep bellow. Vivienne focused fire on the pride demon while Iron bull attacked the shade that had come too close for comfort. Cameron danced around the pride demon, mindful of its strong electric whips and its hard spiny hands as it made to backhand her. Cassandra blocked the second shades strike pushed its two handed attacks to the left and sliced it through the waist before she turned back to the pride demon. Everyone seemed to focus on the beast now, Cameron having distracted it from aiming its relentless attacks at a lone Cassandra or a robed Vivienne. Iron bull and herself charged to the back of its legs where the armour was softer while Cameron continued just jump around the beast and slice multiple small slices along weaker parts of its defences and Vivienne hit the creature with powerful ice blasts to the face thoroughly blinding and confusing it. It fell and it was dragged back into the rift. She expected the burst of sound as the rift lost its strength to summon demons. Only it didn't.

There was another wave, Cassandra wasn't sure if they could handle another pride demon, let alone two.

Her breath caught in her throat as a girl was hurtled out of the rift and it closed itself, no, collapsed in on itself. She could still feel it's sick magic there. Drip, drip, drip, and the wind had stopped.

When had the wind stopped?

The herald rushed forwards towards the girl, concern evident on her face but her blades still held drawn. She turned tightly to glance at Cassandra, something was wrong was the girl dead? She marched over to the Herald, something was wrong, the blood was everywhere pools of it deep enough for it to turn black.

"Cassandra, her foot, Oh, oh gods above!" The Herald gagged and glanced away. Cassandra had forgotten the elf was not a woman of war. She was right the girl's foot was absolutely wretched, a large metal spear ran straight through the top of her calf to the underside of her ankle and had probably shattered a lot of bone from what she could see from fragments floating in the red goop. The flesh was yellow with pus and stank of infection, thin skin blackened and dying. The splint on it had shattered and dug itself into the wound and other parts of the injured foot. Cassandra moved to check over the girl despite how she stank of infection and corrupted magicka. Her face was impossible pale and awash with a cold sweat, hair matted with dried blood and what looked like sick. Her fingertips were bleeding from tearing at something and there were spots of blood near her ribs. She looked gaunt, almost dead and she was impossibly malnourished.

"Shit." Iron Bull muttered from behind them as he caught up to them.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with the Oxman's rather vulgar words on this one. I shall go and inform Adan, my fade step will get me there quicker." The smaller figure of Vivienne perked up from behind and with a whisper of mana, was gone.  
"She breathing boss?" Bull perked up, he'd gotten closer yet his voice, somehow, sounded further away. Maybe it was the pounding in her ears or her armour, covered in liquid red.

This was all wrong, everything. The rift still stood, she could practically feel it, yet it felt wrong, muted and loud at the same time. As if she stood before it yet behind something all together. She felt it bob and hum and thrum its way into her mind and it threatened to deafen her.

"Herald, could you close the rift please?" She swore her voice wavered. Cassandra Pentaghast did not beg.

The Herald turned and looked at her confused "But it's closed, look, no sparks." She waved an arm to show that indeed, the mark was not reacting or even recognising the screaming of the rift that was everywhere.

She tried to shake the feeling, but as she stood to aid Cameron in their mysterious girl, the rift got louder. So much so that the ground threw itself at her, or her at the ground. She couldn't tell.

"Cassandra! Gods, Bull, don't you fall over too!" She could somewhat hear what the Herald was saying, but it was all muffled like she were under warm covers.

Then she realised it, the noise of the rift was coming from the girl. Shocked Cassandra scrambled to her senses as she tried to dispel the magic flowing from the injured woman. Thrusting her strength out she felt the corrupted thrum of magic hiss and spit at her dispel, even as it dwindled to nothing. She reacted poorly, her entire body jerked upwards and a keening scream escaped blood chapped lips. Her eyelids opened even as her eyes stayed in her head. Her hands shot to the nearest object, Cameron's arm, the one with the mark. Cassandra had to give it to her that the Herald didn't make any noise, her face said it all however of the pain that flared. The screaming didn't stop until wet gurgled in her mouth.

"She's going to be sick!" Moving the elf, even with the vice like grip the stranger had on her arm, moved to roll the girl over onto her side. Cassandra had to bolt out of the way as the woman threw her stomach contents out where she had been standing moments before. Afterwards, all of the rigidness left her body and she went slack on the now questionably coloured snow.

Cameron stayed where she was for a second before she realised the girl was not getting up, she groaned and gripped her marked hand pulling it close to her body.

"Cassandra, what was that?" It wasn't accusing but the seeker felt the need to defend herself anyway. It was never accusing with the Herald and unlike herself, the woman didn't seem to do anything without an explanation. Cameron never seemed to give blame when she barely understood herself. A small whisper of envy burrowed in her chest before she shrugged the feeling off.

"The rift, it originated from her, I could feel it's magic inside her! I did not know she would react like that Herald." She replied, her eyes struggling between the girl below and Cameron's eyes.

"I too felt some form of magic, though I did not know it was coming from inside the girl. Perhaps it was Cassandra's status as a seeker that gave her access to feeling the rift." Vivienne spoke up from next to her. The seeker didn't feel like she needed a defender but the brief relief that she was not the only one still flashed in her gut. She hadn't realised when the circle mage had come back or when she had stood next to her.

Cameron sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her good hand "Yes probably so, I am not a mage and neither is Bull nor am I a Templar or seeker. I trust your actions were just Cassandra, but maybe we should keep whomever this is away from magic, we don't want another reaction like this."

Cassandra frowned "you cannot possibly think we are letting her into Haven Herald! She had a rift inside of her, we do not know who she is or where she is from, she could be a spy or a-" She was cut off by a stern but diplomatic sigh.

"You would prefer we leave her in the cold? To let her die without having the chance to understand a possible threat? I understand your concern Seeker but if there are to be more people with rifts inside of them, wouldn't it be best to take her back in order to understand this. And yes, I am aware we are low on medical supplies but I am leaving for Val Royeaux in a few days, there will be plenty of supplies there." Cameron posed a good point and the seeker sighed.

With that two of Adan's Elven workers ran over to the girl to move her onto a stretcher.  
________________________________________

"Seeker if you continue to stare at the poor girl anymore I think she'll shit herself." Cassandra was put out of her thoughts by Varric's off comment from beside her. They were now sitting at a campsite waiting for lunch to cook, some nugs and a cluster of game birds.

He was right, Cassandra was staring at the scavenger. Alex herself looked absolutely terrified and seemed to want to hide behind the very disgruntled Cameron. The Herald still dripped swamp water every time she moved.  
________________________________________

Alex had quite happily been sitting next to the Herald, as she quietly seethed, Alex had taken to playing with her arrows as a means of waiting for their dry, albeit still edible lunch.  
She then looked up.

And almost pissed herself at the icy glare the She-bear was giving her.

Alex decided to slink closer to the damp, angry Cameron than stay nearer to the seeker.

________________________________________  
It frustrated her that Cameron had taken a soft spot to the girl, that being said she wouldn't be surprised if the elf one day started singing and tamed a pride demon. The herald seemed incapable of bringing intentional harm or hatred to anything that wasn't openly evil. Still, it was unsettling how she had simply let the girl sleep in her own house, even if Cameron were not a warrior, as a hunter there must have been alarms in her head at letting an unknown, clearly addled girl sleep in her home.  
Cassandra still hadn't torn her eyes away from the scavenger and she was starting to look truly terrified.

"Cassandra." Varric snapped her out of her thoughts and she turned slightly to face him. She heard a breath of relief from behind her. The dwarf smiled slightly as she turned to look at him.

She turned back to the girl as she left and for a moment all she saw was the red wet again. Cassandra would never admit to that moment in her life truly scaring her, but it did. The unknown. The endless abyss that was everything she did not know. Cassandra could deal with the oddities, with the fighting, she knew that, but the rift? The rift that tore itself into another being, which bled the red of so many hundreds of others? It scared her, greatly.

She huffed and walked into her tent, tired of the girl and the memories she brought.

It was dark now and the group had settled in a small village they had found near Haven. The night was bitterly cold and seemed to whisper along the skin of the mountain folk with an icy forked tongue, leaving their cheeks red and stinging and their hands numb. The mountains lay slumbering in the dark night, their peaks misty with cloud, quiet and peaceful in their slumber, no snow would fall tonight like stone. The wooden cabins were slick with ice and snow as the freeze bore down on the wood.  
Only the wind whispered cold nothings tonight.

Cassandra found the girl behind an abandoned hut, she had left a mere hour ago after their lunch had been served in the local tavern. Alex seemed only capable of a few expressions, wide eyed, fear and the off look she sometimes gained. Cassandra had sent herself to find her after she had not returned after they thought she had merely visited the bucket and trench down near the back of the village. The seeker had searched high and low for the girl, checking locked doors for break ins, asking the locals and even searching near the shadier parts but to no avail.

She had almost given up when she heard shuffling from behind a charred wooden shack. Straightening she trudged towards the noise.

Cassandra had found the girl, she lay against a scaled black wall with her head bowed and her legs curled up to her chest and her hands wrapped around them. She still wore that armour she had found but the helmet lay in front of her as if staring at her. She was silent as the wind whistled around them, as if an innocent joke or a child trying to get out of trouble from his mother, the silence unnerved her and Cassandra took towards the girl.

The seeker crouched in front of the girl after she failed to react to the seekers less than subtle footsteps. Her still gaunt features were still tracked with now icy tears and snowflakes clung to her hair. Even as the seeker pressed her gauntlet to her brow she barely reacted, the seekers frowned and bit back the memory of the red. She would have been dead by morning if she had not gone out to find her Cassandra thought and with that thought, she acted. Slinging the helmet onto a hook in her belt, she hauled the girl up into her arms, she was terrifyingly light, too light.

She turned towards where she herself was sleeping.

Barging into the room with the freezing girl was a stark contrast to the icy cold blues of the outside, her fire was still going in the stone hearth and it lit up the inside of the cabin like a bonfire. Cassandra did not have the time to focus on the appearance of her cabin as she held the still Alex in her arms. Moving she laid the small girl into her bed, she looked stupidly small in the single bed and Cassandra felt a spark of frustration and worry at how small the girl was. How much she looked like a child in that mere moment. Cassandra moved the covers tighter to the girl, the seeker was no stranger to hypothermia and the bite of the cold on limbs, that thought made her move the covers impossibly tight to her frame; the girl need not lose any more body parts. Cassandra could feel the ribs under the skin and how the hips of her body jutted out too much for her own liking, how the shadows of her eyes and cheeks stay stuck in her visage and how her breaths were too short for a girl that age. Cassandra didn't know her age. She sucked in a breath.

The girl, Alex was still unconscious so giving her warmer fluids was risky at best, she was no healer. Her body, however, had started faintly shivering, Cassandra preferred shivering more than stone cold static. There was more colour to her faint skin, not much, but some and her lips were now not the colour of the snow outside. Cassandra dared to let go of her breath and collapsed in a nearby chair.

Only just noticing the discomfort in her hip she turned to pick up the helmet in her hands and examine it. It was an odd thing indeed, the visor was made of three portcullis like prongs that would come to rest down the beaver of the helm which was shaped like a mask with hardened leather and steel. The comb was made up of several plates that overlapped each other they grew and flattened out to the end, the last one being flat with the end of the beaver. Their metal clasps hell tightly onto a weighted hood, the inside was roughly made but still warm and padded. The seeker remembered how she had supposedly found this on one of her own people, long since dead. Was this the armour they wore there? Or was it a madman's last hope at survival, finding and sticking together parts in order to survive. The helm was unique yes, yet so was her own, it provided no more protection than her own, possibly less. In the dark, the helm would glint if any light were to touch it.

She put the hood over the top of the helm and she felt it, the barest flicker of an enchantment and suddenly it was shrouded entirely in a black mist. She dropped the helmet on the ground.

Refusing to touch it, the seeker decided she would leave it there until the morning and let the scavenger pick it up.

________________________________________  
The seeker awoke to wide green orbs watching her from inside the nest of covers. In the night the younger girl had nestled deep into the covers and had been enveloped entirely in material other than the shadow of her head peeking out from her covers. The two stared at each other, one utterly confused and the other cross with the other's stupidity. Cassandra huffed and stood up sharply.

Pointing a still gloved finger at the other she growled "you act as you've never seen snow before! Like you don't know what cold bite is! Do you know how dangerous that was last night? You could have frozen to death, You insolent child! If I had not have found you, you would be an ice lick for the wolves!"

The smaller woman looked like she was about to bolt "I'm sorry! I didn't know that snow was so dangerous! The inside was too loud I had to find somewhere quiet to gather my thoughts I didn't know!"

"Andraste preserve me! To hell, you don't know! You should have realised the moment you couldn't feel your hands! Do you have that little common sense!?" Cassandra had raised her voice as the argument continued, her face was probably redder than usual but by the maker, this girl was infuriating!

Alex's eyes widened for a split second and Cassandra swore her green orbs were going to fall out of her eyes before that expression returned to her face. The angry one.

"I know exactly how to survive you furred ass! You sit in your fucking inn and drink luxury, eat luxury you're all fucking pigs! I've never had that much food, I've never seen snow because my home doesn't fucking have any!" Alex's quiet voice was raw from the screaming.

Cassandra gaped slightly before the rage returned, she went to open her mouth but was interrupted.

"Everything I've ever know is survival because I don't have anything else! I don't spend hours hunting food so I can have a banquet with nobles or friends and family! I don't have a family! You fucking hypocrite! You act like you know hardship when you were brought up locked in a fucking tower with warmth, food, family and everything I didn't have, 'Princess Cassandra Pentaghast'. Me? I have never had that, my home was made of wood, the most I ever ate was a sick goat! I don't have a family to love, to do anything with! And you act to me like I'm an untrustworthy cow when you can't even realise your own faults through your own fucking ignorance!" Alex was downright screaming at Cassandra by the time Cameron barrelled down the door, blades in hand. Alex stared at Cassandra before turning on her heel sharply and limping away. Ignoring everything.

Cameron blinked at Cassandra, the seeker swore she said something. Cassandra couldn't hear over the lump in her throat or the rush of wet blood in her ears. She blinked and put her gauntlet to her ear, it came back a tangy red.  
When had her ears started bleeding?

All she could hear was the wet dripping sound.


End file.
